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THE USE OF THE 
KINDERGAKTEN GIFTS 



BY 



GRACE FULMER 

Sometime Assistant Professor of Kindergarten Education 

in Teachers College, Columbia University and 

Assistant Superintendent of Schools, 

Los Angeles, California 




BOSTON NEW YOEK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



LBU.75 

• F g 



COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY GRACE FULMER 
AI.L RIGHTS RESERVED 



1.1)0 



FEB 25 1918 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
V . S . A 



©CLA481823 



TO MY STUDENTS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

FROM NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SIX TO 

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE 

IS THIS BOOK 

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

It has been my earnest desire in the follow- 
ing pages to show the educational principles 
advanced as immanent in the methods used 
with the kindergarten gifts, and to show the 
methods used as principles in practice. The 
purpose of the volume is not to develop spe- 
cific methods and devices for the imitative 
use of kindergartners. The procedures pre- 
sented are but illustrations or embodiments 
of universal principles which may be applied 
in a thousand varied ways. If the reader grasps 
the laws of growth and education which are 
here made concrete, and feels inspired and 
informed to make her own applications in the 
kindergarten, then the aim of this book is 
achieved. 

As I re-read these chapters, I feel the limi- 
tations of the printed word in expressing the 
thought of one who has long relied on the 
more intimate and more adequate opportuni- 
ties of classroom discussion to present and 
clarify pedagogical thought. This sense of 



vi PREFACE 

personal limitation at once reminds me of my 
debt to the many students who have, by the 
free presentation of their own difficulties of 
thought and action, contributed greatly to 
my own thinking. Their stimulating influ- 
ence throughout many years is sincerely ap- 
preciated. 

All those who have been associated with 
Dr. John Angus MacVannel, of Columbia 
University, will readily recognize my main 
source of indebtedness. What he has con- 
tributed in the field of education to the kinder- 
garten movement, the life of the kindergar- 
ten, the interpretation of Froebel's idea of 
seK-activity, and the development of the in- 
dividual in his relation to the social whole, 
can be best appreciated by those who have 
had the opportunity of studying with him 
and of reorganizing their work under his 
guidance. I am also greatly indebted to Dr. 
MacVannel for sympathy and encourage- 
ment given me in the effort to express that 
which is of the deepest interest to me, for the 
careful reading of this entire manuscript, and 
for helpful suggestions given here and there. 

It is scarcely necessary for me to acknowl- 



PREFACE vii 

edge to most readers my indebtedness to 
Professor John Dewey, of Columbia Univer- 
sity, whose classes are always an inspiration. 
More than most teachers of philosophy he 
has the power to make his student feel that 
educational principles are universal, and must, 
therefore, find application in every depart- 
ment of the school system. 

Grace Fulmer. 

Los Angeles, California 
August, 1917, 



CONTENTS 

Introduction, hy J. H. Francis , . xi 

I. Fundamental Principles in the Kin- 
dergarten 1 

II. First and Second Gifts .... 22 

III. The Building Gifts — Third to 

Sixth Gifts 51 

IV. The Flat Materials — Seventh to 

Twelfth Gifts 134 

V. Summary of Important Suggestions 195 

Appendix: Illustrations — Building 
Gifts — Figures 1 to 80 . . . . 211 

Outline 229 



INTRODUCTION 

BY 

J. H. FRA.NCIS 
Superintendent of Schools, Columbus, Ohio 

The writing of this book was inspired by 
the hope of enriching the hves of the Httle 
kindergarten children who are knocking in 
ever-increasing numbers for admittance to the 
public schools of America. 

The child is coming to be recognized 
throughout civilization as its most important 
asset, and his early training as the dominant 
factor in his life. "The proper study of man- 
kind is man" has become a truism, but its 
significance would be greatly enhanced if it 
read, "The proper study of mankind is the 
child." 

Probably the world will never stand in so 
great need of any other thing as that of teach- 
ers and parents who understand the child and 
who are sufficiently wise and willing to under- 
take his natural and efficient development. 
The worth of such a civilization cannot be 



xii INTRODUCTION 

estimated. The author of this book is one of 
these rare individuals. If, however, this book 
of hers shall be Hmited in its influence to the 
kindergarten world, education will sustain a 
distinct and material loss. Much of its con- 
tent in conception and presentation could be 
studied with equal profit by all teachers and 
by all students of education. Its greatest con- 
tribution would come, however, if read, stud- 
ied, and understood by parents. 

Whether The Use of the Kindergarten Gifts 
shall have the circulation it deserves, time 
alone can tell, but I predict with confidence 
that it is surely destined to become a classic 
in the literature of education. 



THE USE OF THE 
KINDERGAIITEN GIFTS 



THE USE OF 
THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

CHAPTER I 

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES IN THE 
KINDERGARTEN 

In a kindergarten whicli I visited recently, 
a group of children were trying to paint spring 
flowers. There were the usual types in the 
group — the child who loves the putting-on 
of color and does not care what will come as a 
result, the one who is indiJBFerent, the one who 
is discouraged by having neither the idea nor 
the technique and therefore does nothing, the 
fairly successful technician whose images are 
clear, and the pathetic struggler whose tech- 
nique seems somehow never to match the 
clearness of his inner vision. It was the last 
child in whom I was especially interested; 
but the teacher paid no attention to him — 
did not notice his troubled expression, his real 
effort, or his inability. The time came to take 
up the children's work, and with a smile and 



2 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

a "that's nice, that's nice, that's nice," the 
teacher took up each paper and put them all 
in one pile at her own place at the table. She 
did not see the troubled look in the last boy's 
face change to a frown, but left the group 
and went to the piano while the children 
marched to the circle. As they all marched 
around the table and the last boy came to 
the teacher's place, he stopped, hastily looked 
through all the papers, found his own, and 
with a look of anger tore it into little pieces 
and dropped them in the scrap-basket on his 
way to the circle. After the good-bye song 
had been sung, the other children went back 
for their work, and the teacher never knew 
that the last boy had none. It is not neces- 
sary to comment upon the lack of discrimina- 
tion, of sincerity on the part of the teacher, 
nor its effect on the whole nature of the child. 
This incident (unfortunately rather typi- 
cal) illustrates a kind of failure which must 
prove fatal to the usefulness of the kinder- 
gartner — a failure of sympathy and under- 
standing. So far as it is due to a deficiency of 
personality on the part of the teacher, such 
a case is hopeless; but if it results merely from 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES S 

a false interpretation of the principles and 
aims of the kindergarten, it is reasonable to 
suppose that the failure is avoidable. Even 
a sympathetic teacher may err, I suppose, in 
a too mechanical and unreflecting reliance on 
various devices. These devices are never ends 
in themselves, and cannot in the nature of 
things be expected to accomplish their ends 
in their entirety excepting as they are em- 
ployed intelligently. It is with a view to sup- 
plying a method, based upon a scientific inter- 
pretation of the principles involved in the use 
of Froebel's gifts, that the present study is 
undertaken. 

Perhaps one of the most satisfactory de- 
finitions of education is that it is a process of 
adjustment of the individual to his ever- wid- 
ening environment. Adjustment necessitates 
action and hence implies activity on the part 
of the one being educated. As no two indi- 
viduals will accomplish the adjustment in ex- 
actly the same way, the activity in any given 
case implies a certain degree of spontaneity 
and initiative. But the process will be modi- 
fied by the character of an ever-widening 



4 USE OF THE KINDERGAKTEN GIFTS 

environment, which represents the infinitely 
variable contacts of the individual with his 
world. 

The educational problem becomes, then, a 
problem of securing the right relationship of 
four factors which must be put in harmony : 
the individual himself, raw materials, his fel- 
low-men, and civilization or race experience 
— the sum total of what men have done with 
raw materials, with their fellow-men, and 
with themselves. How do these four factors 
touch and affect every life in its onward move- 
ment, and what have they to do with our sub- 
ject, "The application of educational prin- 
ciples in the method of using Froebel's gifts"? 

The highest form of adjustment, involving 
as it does a sentient being as one of its factors, 
is conscious, intelligent adjustment to every 
situation, and implies ultimately a knowledge 
of self, of raw materials, of human beings, 
and of civilization with a resulting attitude 
toward all four. 

Of the first — self — and of the last — civili- 
zation — primitive man and the little child 
are wholly unconscious; of the second and 
third — raw materials and his fellow-men — 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 5 

man has been dimly conscious from his ear- 
Hest days, and through his changing attitude 
toward them, his changing interests in them, 
and hence his changing responses to them, 
has given the race to-day that vast rich spirit- 
ual inheritance which we call civilization, and 
has secured simultaneously a widening and 
deepening consciousness of self. 

The two factors of adjustment — the one 
adjusting and that to which he adjusts him- 
self — are the elements of the little child's 
first experience. His attitude toward life is 
much like what we may suppose primitive 
man's to have been — a purely active one. 
In other words, his interest in an object is 
more likely to take the form of an unthinking 
impulse to do something with it. The thing 
to him is what can be done with it, and this 
natural, impulsive doing is the means whereby 
he begins to get control both over things and 
over himself. 

Of course his earliest doing is instinctive, 
impulsive, and largely unthinking; but edu- 
cation requires that this must not be so, that 
man as a thinking being must grow into 
mastery of his own intellectual powers. Edu- 



6 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

cation would lift tlie unconscious acts of child- 
hood to consciousness, and as this is to be 
done through the guidance, direction, and 
cooperation of the teacher, demands on her 
part a knowledge of the achievements and 
products of civilization, and an understanding 
of humanity in its developing process. The 
teacher must see the child "writ large" in 
human history in order that she may have a 
more sympathetic "understanding of him with 
whom she deals. Hence arises the demand for 
greater scholarship on the part of the teacher, 
since she is to be the means through which the 
valuable experience of the race is to be trans- 
mitted to the individual and interpreted and 
given meaning in the reconstruction of his 
own experience. 

If human experience was organized through 
man's response to the world about him, there 
must have been some stimuli or materials 
that were more efficient and salutary than 
others. It follows, then, that we have it in 
our power, profiting by all that man has done 
in the past, to select for the child those ma- 
terials which will stimulate right impulses 
and right activities and lead thus to a fuller 
realization of self. 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 7 

The materials peculiar to the kindergarten 
were selected because of their value in the 
organization and control of human experi- 
ence — because of their universal significance 
— and not because they happened to be the 
few things in which the founder of the kin- 
dergarten had become interested, or because 
of their appeal to a few individuals. By ma- 
terials I mean all of those means of expression 
of universal childhood, through which experi- 
ence has been given form and had its mean- 
ing deepened: songs, games, stories, conver- 
sation, excursions, gifts, and occupations. All 
of these have to do with various types of re- 
sponse made by children to their environ- 
ment, and each one in itself is a subject of 
special interest and study. 

We are to consider, however, but one of 
these in the present connection — namely, 
the gifts — and are to attempt to apply edu- 
cational principles in the organization of one 
phase of the child's experience through this 
particular medium. 

These gifts, then, are our "raw materials" 
which for the child have not yet taken on 
definite or fixed form, but which were selected 



8 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

as valuable in stimulating activities which 
will lead to further control and fuller appre- 
ciation on his part, and through which he can 
give form to that which vaguely stirs within 
him. 

The child's natural impulse is to do some- 
thing with everything, to play with it, to 
handle it for the mere sake of handling; his 
early activity is a species of experimentation. 
Our understanding of the nature of children's 
responses to any stimulus should govern us 
in the selection of materials for use as stim- 
uli. If the natural response to any thing is 
to do something with it, then the materials 
selected for use when the child first enters 
kindergarten must be the kind with which he 
can do something, the kind that will stimu- 
late activity, doing with rather than thinking 
about. This does not mean that there is to 
be no thinking; but that through doing think- 
ing will come, that thought will emerge in and 
through activity. 

The infant's earliest activities are expres- 
sions of the life activity, though merely im- 
pulsive in character. To these the mother 
(it may be naturally or intuitively) gives 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 9 

meaning in order that energy may be con- 
served and directed — not aimlessly dissi- 
pated.! Froebel illustrates this fact in the 
first song in his Mother-Play Book. The life 
impulse within impels the child to toss his 
limbs about as he lies on his bed or on his 
mother's lap. There is no consciousness on 
the part of the child of purpose near or remote 
in this movement; it is simple activity — a 
sort of physical response to an inner impulse, 
accompanied by nothing more complex than 
a certain joy in the act itself. But the mother 
meets this expression of life with a sympa- 
thetic response, which now becomes an outer 
stimulus to further activity, more vigorous 
and more joyous on the part of the child. She 
places her hands against the kicking feet, 
thus giving baby something to kick against 
and giving something of a meaning to his 
activity. It is no longer a mere vague toss- 
ing about of the limbs, but a pushing against 
something which responds, which may be 
withdrawn or pressed more heavily, requir- 
ing greater and more definitely directed en- 
ergy in order to feel it give way. The mother 
who would encourage her child, who would 



10 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

help to transform a meaningless activity into 
a significant one, puts her hands against his 
feet with just enough force to make him push 
harder, and then withdraws them when he 
does push harder, that this first success may 
encourage him to further effort. Each time 
the act is repeated, power is gained through 
this conserving and directing of energy, and 
a deeper sympathy is established between 
mother and child. On the other hand, if this 
impulse of the child were not met, or if it 
were met unsympathetically, the energy thus 
spent would be dissipated aimlessly, at least 
in part. Thus a potentially profitable activ- 
ity might through lack of encouragement be 
wasted or even eliminated. 

The first time the infant utters the sounds 
"ma, ma, ma," they are to him wholly with- 
out meaning, arising merely from his pleasure 
in uttering sounds. To the mother, however, 
they are already freighted with meaning, and 
she says, "Yes, mamma is here," or, "Mamma 
will come"; whenever he repeats the sounds 
she appears and with a touch and a smile 
helps him to form a pleasant association. 
Gradually these sounds, through association. 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 11 

receive a meaning, and are uttered when he is 
alone and wants the pleasant feeling of hav- 
ing his mother with him. Thus, from having 
had their origin in a mere impulse wholly un- 
controlled by thought, they become a more 
conscious expression pointing to some end or 
purpose. In a way quite similar might be 
traced much of the development of language 
in general, which, beginning in the mere ut- 
terance of sound, is met in the human com- 
munity in a sympathetic way and is so trans- 
formed into intelligible speech; or, to put it 
differently, out of mere meaningless sounds, 
uttered for the pleasure the utterance gives, 
if wisely met, do words and thought emerge. 
This process of the emergence of thought 
through action is sympathetically inter- 
preted by Josephine Preston Peabody in her 
quaint little poem "The Green Singing 
Book": 

"I don't know how to read the words. 
Nor how the black things go, 
But if you stand them up and sing. 
You never need to know. 

*'The music sounds alike each time 
When grown-up people play; 
But every time I sing myself. 
It sounds a different way. 



n USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

"And when I *ve sung the book all through. 
And every page, around, 
I stand it upside down and sing. 
To see how that will sound. 

**I sing how all the things outside 
The window look to me; 
The shining wrinkles in the road. 
And then, about my Tree; 

"I sing about the city, too. 
The noises and the wheels; 
And windows blinking in the sun; — - 
I sing the way it feels. 

**And if a sparrow flies across, 
I put him in my song. — 
I sing whatever happens in. 
To make it last for long. 

**I sing about the things I think 
Of almost every thing. 
Sometimes I don't know what to think 
Till I begin to Sing." 

Froebel says that education must be some- 
thing more than mere instinctive response to 
children's needs, it must be a conscious recog- 
nition of their energy, of their Hfe. Therefore, 
in the schools there must be something more 
than materials as stimulus on the one hand, 
and children to respond on the other; there 
must be a third factor, the teacher, who, 
through wide knowledge of the impulses, in- 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 13 

stincts, activities, and attitudes of little chil- 
dren, and of that "wider life toward which 
humanity is struggling," and a knowledge as 
well of the materials in their simplest sugges- 
tiveness and their widest social implications, 
shall be able to give meaning to these first 
impulsive acts, leading from them to a more 
conscious and intelligent response to the same 
materials, and to new materials as they are 
presented. 

This recognition of the teacher as a neces- 
sary third factor in the child's early develop- 
ment carries with it an assumption that the 
teacher will bring to her task a specialist's 
knowledge of child-activity in its twofold 
aspect and that she will realize with special 
clearness the close and vital relationship exist- 
ing between activity for its own sake and ac- 
tivity for the sake of an end. One great weak- 
ness in all teaching of young children, whether 
in Idndergarten or primary grades, is the 
result of a lack of understanding of this rela- 
tionship, an inability to see a possible tran- 
sition here from one phase to another. Too 
often, in the mind of the teacher, there is a 
gap between the two, which she tries in some 



14 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

artificial way to bridge. She shows her con- 
sciousness of this break, or her vague feehng 
of it, by the kind of thing she expects of her 
children when they first enter school. Par- 
ents show the same attitude by their final 
admonition to the little one who steps from 
the nursery into the school-room for the first 
time. Have we not often heard an apparently 
intelligent father or mother say to Johnnie on 
this occasion, ** Until to-day you have been 
having a good time, just staying at home and 
playing all day long; but now you are going 
to school, and I tell you, you will have to 
work".f^ Again, have we not known the pri- 
mary teacher who has said to the children 
entering the first grade, *'Last year you were 
in the kindergarten, and just played; but now 
you are going to learn to read and write, and 
you'll have to work".^ And the discouraging 
part is that in many cases both the parents 
and the teacher were speaking the truth : there 
is the kind of first grade in which the poor un- 
fortunate little ones just work; and there is 
the kind of kindergarten in which equally un- 
fortunate little ones just play ! Until teachers 
themselves understand that all education is 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 15 

an unbroken process with the emphasis upon 
first one phase and then another, and reahze 
that there is a constant transition from one 
to the other, we cannot expect parents to 
have a different attitude toward this problem. 
A feehng of a need of this better understand- 
ing is expressed in many places by the estab- 
lishment of "connecting classes" or "transi- 
tion classes" between kindergarten and first 
grade. These very classes fail of their purpose 
by becoming either advanced kindergarten 
groups or sub-primary classes. In a purely 
external way the subject-matter of the kinder- 
garten is carried up into the primary, or the 
subject-matter of the primary is carried down 
into the kindergarten, and we are no nearer a 
vital connection than we were before. An- 
other equally mechanical attempt we find in 
some kindergartens, where the last few weeks 
are spent in "getting ready" for the primary. 
So long as we attempt to make this con- 
nection through materials or subject-matter 
alone, we are sure to fail. It is only when we 
grasp the principle, when we understand the 
movement of the child's mind, when we see 
the transition from one phase of activity to 



16 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

another all along the line, that we can put 
into practice our theory of the continuity of 
the educative process. If we understand this 
most fundamental principle, our first day of 
kindergarten experience instead of the last 
few weeks will be the beginning of our prep- 
aration for first-grade work, and there will 
be no necessity for so-called "connecting 
classes" or ** transition classes," or for putting 
distinctly first-grade subject-matter into the 
kindergarten. 

If for the expressions, "activity for its own 
sake" and "activity for the sake of an end" 
we substitute the terms "play" and "work," 
perhaps we shall be able both to clarify these 
expressions, and find at the same time a 
greater educational significance in the terms 
substituted. This surely will lead us far from 
the distinction often made in past years, be- 
tween play as something one wants to do, and 
work as something one doesn't want to do; 
or between play as a thing self-imposed, and 
work as a thing imposed by another. To-day 
we see play as activity for its own sake, or for 
the joy in the doing, and work as activity for 
the sake of an end; our problem is to make the 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 17 

transition from one to the other in such a way 
as to carry the spirit of play over into the 
work, simply adding the directing influence 
of an end or purpose without sacrificing the 
joy in the activity itself. In the words of 
Kipling — 

" Each for the joy of the working, 
And each in his separate star. 
Shall draw the thing as he sees it 
For the God of things as they are.** 

The artist does just this, whether his material 
be stone, clay, color, sound, or words; he 
works "for the joy of the working," and 
though he has a large purpose which guides 
his activity, his strength and creative power 
depend upon the joy of doing, upon the spirit 
of play. 

Play looked at in this way must be the very 
essence of any truly great work, and must 
save the worker from drudgery. The teacher 
who loves her work, who feels a joy in the 
very doing of it, is an artist; but when the 
end set by the curriculum, the superintend- 
ent, the supervisor, or the principal is so over- 
whelming that she has to use any and every 
mechanical device to reach it, the spirit of 



18 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

play is gradually smothered, and the artist 
becomes an artisan; and it may be that by- 
and-by, the spirit of play will die altogether 
and leave nothing but a drudge. The spirit of 
play, out of which naturally emerges the end or 
purpose of work, is the altar-fire which should 
be kept eternally burning in the school-room 
if we would send forth from the school-room 
men and women of power to take their places 
in the larger world. This cannot be done until 
we as educators realize that play and work 
are not things in themselves, but attitudes of 
mind, and that play is the attitude of mind 
of the young children who enter the schools, 
who find a far greater interest in the doing of 
something than in the result of that doing. 
The teacher should not be content with mere 
doing, with a merely impulsive response, nor 
should she be satisfied with the repetition 
which makes habit out of impulse. She must 
gradually raise the child's activity to the 
plane of conscious, intelHgent response to 
every situation which requires it. Indeed, the 
child must finally acquire the ability to break 
up a habit as well as form one, that he may 
the better adjust himself to new situations 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 19 

and solve his problem. It is the opportunity 
of the teacher so to present her materials that 
even in a child's earliest experimentation he 
begins to find little problems which require 
certain manipulations, certain adaptations 
and adjustments out of which real thinking 
will emerge. 

In the kindergarten, as in all education, 
there appear to be two principal dangers : one 
is that we do not start near enough to the 
beginnings of things, and, therefore, from the 
very first tend to impose our maturer re- 
sponses to materials upon children; the other 
is that being afraid of imposing ourselves and 
our ideas upon them we leave them almost 
wholly to their own responses, and hence do 
not lead them anywhere after they do begin. 
Our ideas, ideals, plans, purposes, interest in 
materials and knowledge of them will be of 
value only when they become means rather 
than ends; when we see them as outgrowths 
of the child's experience, rather than as pres- 
ent forms to be imposed upon him out of our 
own experience. On the other hand, impulses, 
instincts, attitudes, interests, and activities 
of little children have no value as ends in 



20 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

themselves but only as points of departure, 
and then only to one whose ultimate standard 
is found in the standards and values of ail 
that is best in the life and progress of the race, 
and who can so guide and direct these present 
interests and activities that they may func- 
tion in future experience. 

It is with these two ever-present dangers 
in mind that I am undertaking this presenta- 
tion of principles and methods as applied in 
the use of the gifts. It is needless to say that 
both dangers present extremes such as no one 
of us has ever met; it is also needless to say 
that we have all seen tendencies in both di- 
rections, sometimes both in one individual, 
and sometimes one or the other in ourselves. 

There is nothing in FroebeFs materials 
which would necessitate either attitude of 
mind, yet one can see how an over-enthusias- 
tic interest in any material itself might be 
fostered at the expense of a more sympa- 
thetic study of the child; while on the other 
hand, a too great attention given to children's 
interests, impulses, instincts, and tendencies 
might keep one from giving time to the mas- 
tery of the materials which must be the means 



FUNDAJVIENTAL PRINCIPLES 21 

of their ever-growing control and deepening 
appreciation. What we must ever seek is 
balance and proportion. 

Every kindergartner needs to have a more 
sympathetic understanding of the universal 
qualities in childhood, a right sense of the 
little child, and also needs to become a master 
in the knowledge and use of her tools. Na- 
tive sympathy and common sense often help 
her somewhat along the first line, but only 
intelligent study and hard work will aid her 
along the second. 

Too often our materials, instead of being 
flexible and suggestive, are fixed and limited. 
This is because we know only the few things 
we have been taught to do with them, rather 
than their full possibilities. Resourcefulness 
demands that we know what a Httle child 
would do with them and what he finally 
should do with them. Traditionally our em- 
phasis has been so largely placed upon re- 
sults that we have failed to see the child's 
achievements as steps in a larger process. We 
have emphasized things done, rather than 
possibilities of doing; achievements rather 
than potentialities. 



CHAPTER II 

FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 
The First Gift 

The first gift consists of six soft worsted 
balls two inches in diameter, being made of 
the six spectrum colors and each having a 
string of a corresponding color about ten 
inches in length attached. 

It is assumed that such an understanding 
of childhood lay back of the selection of these 
gifts that they must stimulate doing-with 
rather than thinking-about. It is further as- 
sumed that the children who will be affected 
by these suggestions for the organization of 
the child's doing, have never before attended 
kindergarten. 

We present to the group the first gift, 
either one ball for the group, or one for each 
child, as seems best to the teacher in view of 
her knowledge of the conditions of the chil- 
dren, the homes from which they come, their 
general attitude toward things, and the 
amount of control they already have over 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 23 

themselves and the narrow world in which 
they live. The first responses are many and 
varied; some bound, some toss, some roll the 
balls; others reacting to the stimulus of the 
string swing and twirl them in various ways; 
still others in whom there is less of motor re- 
sponse, are content simply to hold the balls in 
their hands. 

If our object is merely to see what the chil- 
dren will do, we may sit there and let them 
continue to do these things or whatsoever 
they please, and that which is done will have 
no meaning to us and no value to them. If 
our object is merely to illustrate a point in our 
program or in our morning talk, we shall have 
special games we wish to teach, and again 
these responses will have little meaning for us 
unless it be confusion. But if our object is to 
develop power in the child and if we see this 
particular lesson as related first and foremost 
to a process, we shall at once recognize pos- 
sibilities of organization through the utiliza- 
tion of certain of these activities. If we un- 
derstand the principle of organization only 
partly, we may use any or all of these re- 
sponses; but if we have a sure grasp of the 



24 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

principle, we shall be able to select those re- 
sponses which when organized will lead to 
greater control on the part of the child. 

Selection means wise discrimination, which 
in turn is made possible only through the 
teacher's standard, through her knowledge of 
the beginning and end of the process and of 
all the steps that lie between. Discrimination 
on the part of the teacher implies elimination 
as much as it does intelligent emphasis. We 
have all known the teacher whose undiscrimi- 
nating way of meeting every child's response 
is, "Yes, yes"; or, "That's nice," "That's 
good"; or, "I like that." 

Little children when they first come to 
school have few standards of their own, and 
surely a most essential part of the teacher's 
work is to help create such standards, in order 
that the children may in time become their 
own severest critics. It is true that in the 
home that which pleases mother or father 
becomes at first the child's standard of ac- 
tion. The very atmosphere created by those 
he loves becomes a most powerful influence 
in the growth of his moral life. The "I like 
that" decides many acts. To a certain extent 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 25 

this is also true in school. If the teacher's ap- 
proval or disapproval soon comes to furnish 
a standard for future work, her decision should 
surely spring from a knowledge of the ma- 
terial and of the child's ability, and from a 
sincerity of purpose to which the youngest 
child is quickly sensitive in the people with 
whom he comes in contact. This does not 
mean that the teacher should never say, 
'* That's good," or, *'I like that"; but that 
she should mean it when she says it and back 
it up with a reason which the child can under- 
stand, thus lifting to consciousness the valu- 
able part of the experience, that it may func- 
tion in the child's next experience: "That's 
good, because you chose such a good color for 
your dandelion." "That's good, because you 
looked at the leaves of the crocus and of the 
daffodil, and found that they were not just 
alike." "That's good, because violets do 
grow near the ground." "I like that be- 
cause you've made such a good green for 
your leaves." "I like that because you've 
put a bit of red in your sky, and skies are not 
always blue." 
i If her criticism is unfavorable, let it be no 



26 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

less sympathetic and helpful: "That isn't a 
very good green, is it? Perhaps I can help 
you make it better this time, and then the 
next time you can do it yourself." **It does 
n't look much like a flower, does it? Let me 
put some bright color on your paper and see 
if it looks more like it. Now you put some 
bright spots on, and when you make one that 
looks something like a flower, I'll tell you, 
and then you can make a whole row on an- 
other piece of paper just as you made this 
one." 

Through such comments as these the child 
is made to feel the teacher's sincerity, and 
through that feehng begins to be conscious 
of standards which will enable him to judge 
and improve his own work when he cannot 
have the teacher at his side. 

But just here we must remind ourselves 
that all such things have only their begin- 
nings in the kindergarten, that not more 
than a few steps can be taken now, and they 
must be steps w^hich need not be paced anew 
in the next part of the onward march, since 
they lead directly to our goal of a more con- 
scious and intelligent response to every situa- 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 27 

tion, and a growing purpose which becomes 
a guide to future acts. 

To return to the presentation of this ma- 
terial, the soft, brightly colored worsted balls 
— tossing may be the response of several 
children. The discriminating teacher will ask 
herself whether the group as a whole yet has 
sufficient control to make this a means of 
organization into group activity. Is there 
perhaps a better reaction for our purpose — 
not merely a better game to teach, but a bet- 
ter possibility of a game, evolving out of 
the activity through the interaction between 
teacher and children.^ 

Rolling the ball, to consider now another 
response, is a thing every child can do, but 
not every child can direct the rolling. This 
activity, however, is more easily organized 
than is tossing at the first, as the ball cannot 
get so far away, and almost any kind of roll- 
ing moreover, will suggest a new motion or 
mode of control. First it is simply rolling 
that interests the child, not rolling to any 
definite point or place. The emphasis is on the 
activity which the child enjoys for its own 
sake. 



28 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

The teacher gives meaning to the action 
by suiting words to it: 

"Now my ball I'm rolling, rolling, rolling. 
Now my ball I 'm rolling 
Back and forth again"; or, "Rolling again.'* 

It may be rolled from hand to hand, or some 
attempt may be made at rhythmic rolling as 
suggested by some child's sense of rhythm, 
itself an elemental feeling capable of being 
deepened through the teacher's emphasis. So 
the individual may roll it rhythmically, then 
the group may try, having observed the in- 
dividual and gained a suggestion of control 
from him. Of course not every child will feel 
the rhythm or swing, though rhythm is one 
of the very easiest means of organization, 
giving the individual child greater control 
and serving to hold the group together. Dur- 
ing this play the ball will, without doubt, roll 
to some other child, and this suggests to the 
teacher a new form of play; one child rolls 
the ball across the circle and the child it 
reaches will roll it in another direction, and 
so on.^ 

^ I am presupposing that whenever possible the first and 
second gifts are used on the floor. 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 29 

Some purpose has emerged out of the mere 
activity, although it may be but the simple 
one of keeping it going, preventing it from 
stopping at any child's place, rolling it on 
as fast as it comes near; from these simple 
beginnings such a game as "Keep the pot 
boUing," or "Poison," or "Hot ball," may 
gradually take form. Another purpose may 
emerge out of this activity, when rolling be- 
comes rolling to some one. In neither of these 
cases is the purpose so difficult that the child 
is technically unable to meet it. So long as it 
is merely a rolling to some one else in order 
that the ball may be kept in motion, the em- 
phasis is still on the activity; later it may be 
directed to a more definite goal, as to some 
particular boy or girl; or the one who rolls it 
may now sit in the center and roll it to each 
child in the circle successively. The idea of 
rolling it to the one opposite may lead to an 
arrangement of the children so that this 
can be better done — in two lines — or girls 
opposite boys, and the play now organized 
begins to take on the form of a game. This 
again may be varied and the form may grow 
more definite. The teacher will now find use 



30 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS . 

for the various rolling games she has learned, 
or for others she has never known that are to 
be found in some book or created for her own 
use. To these games she will give their ap- 
propriate descriptive names, in order that 
the child may become more conscious of what 
he is doing. It is in this way, in reality, that 
all games emerge from the first response of 
children to their environment. 

Another response, merely physical at first, 
from which a different type of game will grow, 
is swinging the ball by the string. This re- 
sponse is selected by the teacher and all 
swing. Swing together, swing and count, 
swing and sing; again the words will simply 
describe the activity. To get better control, 
repeat the swinging movement, but with va- 
riations to avoid monotonous repetition or 
drill. In this instance again the suggestions 
will come from the children's responses. 
This utilization of individual response gives 
variety and develops spontaneity or a creative 
spirit in individuals while the accompanying 
emphasis upon group activity develops unity 
and power of concerted action. The neces- 
sary balance will be preserved if the process 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 31 

is maintained as an interaction of the indi- 
vidual, the group, and the teacher. The varia- 
tion may be high swinging, low swinging, fast 
swinging, slow swinging, swinging round and 
round, up and down, back and forth, the 
teacher singing descriptive words for each 
activity. 

The regular rhythmic swinging back and 
forth may suggest the pendulum. If it does 
not, the words "tick tock," said or sung by 
the teacher, will give more meaning to this 
particular activity. From this swinging in 
unison in simple imitation of the movement 
of the pendulum a clock game may gradu- 
ally develop which will mean far more to the 
children than a game arbitrarily adopted or 
taught. Activity has now become represent- 
ative; it is controlled by an idea. The form 
the game takes is so controlled by the sugges- 
tions of the teacher that it is necessarily more 
beautiful and more satisfactory than any 
which the children alone could invent. The 
possibilities are endless. Perhaps half the 
children are clocks and the other half come 
to buy, or a few may be clocks and all of the 
others buyers. With the youngest children, 



32 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

as the game grows more suggestive, less em- 
phasis is put upon rhythmic swinging and 
more upon buying and selHng, for it is dif- 
ficult to think of two things at one time. With 
the older children, both sides are emphasized; 
there may be big clocks with long pendulums 
that swing slowly, little ones with short pen- 
dulums that swing rapidly, clocks that strike, 
and alarm clocks. Now the idea which has 
emerged, controls or directs the act. At one 
time the game takes one form and at another 
time another, until the most satisfactory 
form has been reached, when it will doubtless 
be repeated in nearly the same way many 
times. 

When the children, through their play, 
have gained sufficient control over their balls 
to make tossing a joyous and profitable activ- 
ity, the teacher will doubtless see the possi- 
bilities of organization along that line and 
take as her point of departure the natural re- 
sponses of the group. From the beginning, 
tossing must be more definitely controlled 
than rolling, for the reasons given above. The 
teacher, realizing that mere tossing in the air 
does not help much in the child's growing 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 33 

control over his material, places some limi- 
tation which helps to define the activity: 
"Hold it in both hands; toss it a little way 
and catch it, whenever I say 'toss.'" If the 
children are very young, only a few will be 
able to catch it, while some will not be able 
to free it from the hand at all, because it 
seems so impossible to make it return. These 
younger children need to have the activity 
varied rather than merely repeated, and so 
the teacher suggests that one at a time they 
toss it into her lap. Realizing the need of 
success to encourage further effort, the teacher 
is quick and skillful enough in some way to 
catch it, and the children are eager to do it 
again and again. The next time it may be a 
good-sized basket in the center of the circle 
into which the balls are tossed, requiring a 
little more skill as the basket does not adapt 
itself to the child's ability to toss. Later still 
one child may toss to another; or one row 
of children may toss to another row, several 
balls being used instead of one; or the teacher 
may toss the ball to each child in the circle, 
and catch it from each one in turn. Any num- 
ber of interesting ways of varying the activ- 



34 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

ity while repeating it to get better control 
will suggest themselves to the teacher or will 
be suggested by the children. The words and 
music found in the many song books may be 
a stimulating means of fostering additional 
control and appreciation; control gained 
through doing the thing when the words sug- 
gest it, and appreciation through the more 
beautiful element which the song adds. 

Some children's responses to the balls may 
be in noticing color, and any number of color 
games could develop. Response to color may 
be the means of varying the rolling, bound- 
ing, swinging, or tossing games. All the red 
balls may be rolled, then all the green, etc.; 
or all the children who have blue balls may 
swing them while the rest sing, then all who 
have yellow, etc. An even more definite game 
may follow, such as: 

**In my hand a red ball I hold 
Till upon the floor 't is rolled; 
If it stops in the ring 

We shall clap, we shall sing." 

The next time some other color is chosen; 
every child listens then to hear if it is the 
color he holds, and when he hears the words. 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 35 

"Till upon the floor 't is rolled," he aims for 
the ring marked in the center of the circle. 
Success is rewarded by the rhythmic clap- 
ping of hands to the music or by the more 
spontaneous applause. 

For the youngest children puzzle games are 
most interesting. One such game consists of 
holding two balls of different colors where all 
can see them, then while backs are turned or 
eyes are shut one ball is taken away and the 
children see who can tell which one is gone. 
This may be made more difficult by holding 
up three, four, five or six colors, or by hold- 
ing two red balls and two yellow ones, and 
then taking away either one at a time or by 
twos. One child may shut his eyes or turn 
his back, or two may do it, all the boys may 
or all the girls; the balls may be laid on the 
table in a row or ring instead of being held in 
the hand. Numberless ways of varying the 
activity will be suggested, and power will be 
gained if the teacher sees that each step gives 
more to the child, and demands more of him. 

Instead of color, number may be empha- 
sized; one ball may be taken away from 
a small and known number, or more from a 



36 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

larger number, and appropriate words may 
be sung by the group. Or number may be em- 
phasized in counting the number of times one 
can bound or toss the ball, perhaps singing: 

"My ball I want to bound (or toss) you 
One time, two times, three times, 
Fom* times, five times, six times.'* 

The first five tones of the scale are used for 
the five counts and for the sixth a returning 
to the key-note. For the child who can catch 
it more than six times, perhaps ten times, the 
counting may continue and the music just 
used may be repeated. In case he is skillful 
enough to catch it a still greater number of 
times, it would be better merely to count. 

As the clock game grew from mere delight 
in the swinging movement, other representa- 
tive games may grow from this or any other 
given movement. The younger child may see 
in the movement of the ball as he holds it by 
the string, a suggestion of flying or hopping, 
and so it becomes a flying bird, a hopping 
bird, or a frog, and words may be found or 
made which will give the game a more satis- 
factory form. Here, however, lurks a danger 
to be avoided — that of selecting a soDg 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 37 

about birds but with no suggestion of action. 
For example, a song about a red bird, an 
oriole, a blue bird, or some other kind dis- 
tinctive only for color, would have no value 
as a stimulus to movement. In such a song, 
there is little for a child to do but sit still and 
hold his ball while the teacher sings about it, 
and naturally he loses interest and does n't 
want to play at all. There are other and more 
appropriate times to learn something about 
the color of birds, or to play color games. 
When the teacher realizes this danger the 
games she develops will grow out of the things 
children do, and at the same time she will be 
able to stimulate an interest to know more 
about these same things at another and more 
appropriate time. 

Rolling and bounding and tossing games 
are by no means limited to the balls of the 
first gift, but are reinforced by means of the 
large soft rubber balls which all children love, 
and which largely take the place of the six 
soft worsted balls for such uses after the child 
leaves the nursery. Froebel meant the first 
use of these first gifts for the little ones in the 
home. There they may repeat their own ac- 



38 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

tivities day after day without gaining much 
in the control of the material; but these same 
exercises carried over into the kindergarten to 
be encouraged and organized by the teacher, 
will require constantly more skill on the part 
of the child, and cannot but give greater free- 
dom of bodily movement and a growing con- 
sciousness of power, as well as an opportunity 
for adjustment to his fellow-creatures. 

The Second Gift 

The second gift consists of a sphere, a cube, 
and a cylinder, each two inches in diameter 
and made of hard, smooth wood. In the mid- 
dle of each surface, at the middle of each edge, 
and at each corner is an eyelet through which 
a string may be slipped for the purpose of 
twirling or swinging the form. There are also 
holes through the center of each form from 
surface to surface, edge to opposite edge, and 
corner to opposite corner, in which rods may 
be inserted for the purpose of experimenta- 
tion. 

In the second gift there is the familiar ball 
which will stimulate rolling as a response; the 
interest will be increased because of the more 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 39 

rapid rolling and the accompanying sound. 
The interest in rolling with a more definite 
purpose will be deepened, for not only may 
the ball be rolled to one child or another, but 
the other forms in the box offer themselves as 
objectives; thus the sphere may be rolled to 
hit either the cube or the cylinder, or to hit 
one with the other placed on top of it, or to 
hit the cube on the top of which have been 
placed both cylinder and sphere. If it reaches 
its goal under the circumstances, the sphere 
is knocked off and the child is equally pleased 
with his success and with the satisfactory 
noise made by the wooden ball in falling. 
Cubes or cylinders or both, or all three forms 
together may be gate-posts through which the 
ball (sphere) must roll without touching. A 
new interest has now been stimulated, which 
requires and develops skill. The repetition 
of a familiar activity with a new purpose and 
in a varied form will bring to the child a clear 
consciousness of the power he is gaining. The 
suggestion for variations will almost without 
exception come from the children themselves; 
but the teacher must be quick to see those that 
are of value, and must be intelligent enough 



40 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

to organize and use them in such a way as to 
make every act in the child's experience mean 
growth. There will be instances, however 
(if the teacher is one with them in all that 
they do), in which the suggestions will not 
come from the children; in these instanced it 
is quite legitimate that they come from the 
teacher in such form as to help give greater 
skill of hand, greater clearness of thought, or 
more joyous activity. Just as the child ac- 
cidentally discovers long before he comes to 
school that the ball rolls and learns to roll it 
to some purpose; and just as he discovers 
that the cube is a very stable object, and uses 
that knowledge to some purpose when he 
stands the cube on the table or the floor and 
rolls the ball with an attempt to hit it; so he 
discovers that the cylinder can both move 
easily and stand still, and out of the responses 
made to this discovery will grow simple plays 
of various kinds. In other words, the knowl- 
edge gained through his discoveries as it 
evolves through continual interaction with 
the teacher will be applied in various ways 
which will help him greatly in his mastery of 
the materials about him. 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 41 

The stability of the cube suggests its ability 
to hold that which is placed on top, and so 
either cylinder or cube is so placed, and pil- 
ing becomes an interesting activity. The very 
act of putting the two together in one way 
suggests the possibility of another way, and 
thus all sorts of arrangements are made and 
all sorts of relations are discovered. While 
this is at first merely a putting together, later 
the result begins to suggest some thing, and 
the arrangement will have to be changed some- 
what to make the thing more suggestive. The 
first purpose of merely handling or putting 
together for the joy of doing is transformed 
in this manner to the higher purpose of put- 
ting together in such a way that the particular 
object may be more satisfactorily represented. 
In some such way will the older children put 
together the spheres, cubes, and cylinders, 
using the paraphernalia found in the boxes 
containing individual gifts to make boats, 
wagons, and toys of various kinds. Meanwhile 
the child is gaining through this play a greater 
power in the control of his physical environ- 
ment, and a greater power of adaptability 
and adjustability to his human environment. 



42 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

The three distinct forms of this gift be- 
come a basis for the recognition of different 
forms in his environment. The child finds a 
certain pleasure in merely handling and being 
able to distinguish one form from the other. 
As in the play with the six bright-colored balls 
of the first gift discrimination through the 
sense of sight was emphasized, so now in 
playing with the three uncolored forms of the 
second gift — the sphere, the cube, and the 
cylinder — discrimination through the sense 
of touch is emphasized. At first this activity 
is stimulated merely by the forms themselves, 
the teacher with a view to helping the child 
gain control of himself and of the world about 
him, having taken this interest as a point of 
departure for the evolution of many games of 
feeling or touch. With the eyes shut, that the 
emphasis may be put wholly upon the sense 
of touch, a child may be given two forms to 
feel, then one may be taken away and he may 
tell which one is left, or he may tell which one 
he does not feel, which one was taken away. 
Later the three forms may be used, or twice 
the three, or even other things added to them 
and taken away, the game being varied ac- 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 43 

cording to the children's or the teacher's sug- 
gestions, and according to their stage of de- 
velopment.^ 

When the strings are attached to these 
forms a new response will be stimulated, dif- 
ferent, because of the added weight, from 
that which was made to the first gift ball. The 
sphere may be swung from front to back, from 
left to right, or around and around. If around 
and around is chosen, after it is twirled enough 
to be wound up, its own weight will unwind 
it, and the child will be fascinated in watch- 
ing it. Here he notes that the rapid twirling 
of the sphere does not change its appearance, 
though it does that of the cube and cylinder. 
"When the string is fastened to the middle of 
a face of the cube and it is twirled, the child 
with great delight sees the cy Under; when at- 
tached to the middle of an edge, it becomes 
something else; and still a different thing 
when it is attached to the corner. The uncer- 
tainty at first of what it is going to be, the 
mystery surrounding this remarkable change, 

* It is interesting to note the more formal way in which 
Montessori would train the sense of touch and to compare her 
sense training generally with that suggested by Frcebel so 
many years before. 



44 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

holds the child's attention and he delights in 
repeating his play. From not knowing what 
will come in these repeated experimentations, 
there has been a growing intelligence in han- 
dling, and a growing purpose, though not yet 
always clear. 

Out of this new purpose will spring a sug- 
gestion of the need of extra material to give 
more meaning to what is being done, or to 
represent more clearly something which the 
child sees; that need can be met with the rods, 
staffs, strings, hooks, and eyes found in the 
individual boxes. With these things added, 
the child finds new possibilities in his own 
activity. We have already seen how the rods 
and cross pieces stimulated many interesting 
combinations, and how the string added to 
any form by means of the eyelet inserted in 
each face, edge, and corner, will result in 
swinging or twirling. If a double string is 
used, the twirling becomes much more in- 
teresting, as one may continually wind and 
unwind and keep the form ever changing. 
This is not an easy thing to do, and will in- 
terest older children only; both the enjoyment 
and the control will come from the child's 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 45 

repeatedly doing rather than watching the 
thing done, except in cases where watching is 
a part of the game. In attaching the string to 
the center of the face of the cube, and twirl- 
ing it rapidly, the child finds that it looks 
very much like a cylinder. First he wonders 
about it vaguely or is delighted with this sur- 
prise, and then he begins to think, to question, 
to find a reason. What does this mean, but 
clearer perceptions on his part, clearer images 
in his mind? How shall we make sure of this, 
or help the child to know better the individual 
forms with which he plays, and their relation 
to each other? Merely twirling, he begins to 
associate the placing of the string with the 
appearance of the form and then later con- 
sciously places the string for the purpose of 
making some special form appear. 

Many puzzle games or problems may grow 
out of this twirling, one child choosing the 
form, placing the string, and twirling, while 
the others, whose backs were turned until it 
was in rapid motion, try to see who can most 
quickly guess both the form which is being 
twirled and the place where the string has been 
attached. 



46 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

Little children in playing with these 
spheres, cubes, and cylinders may call them 
by the names of things which they suggest; 
the cube may be called box, house, table 
chair, or any other of a dozen or more ob 
jects, although these names are not given or 
associated with them until there has been 
some play with the forms themselves. The 
teacher will remember of course ';that if this 
association is made by the child himself, it 
has a place in his growth; one, however, that 
is but temporary and changes with his in- 
terests, being now one thing, now another, 
because these forms are simple and sugges- 
tive. 

Just here a possible source of danger may 
be noted. Sometimes we may begin by giving 
these strange names ourselves, because we 
think they should suggest these things to the 
child, and the absurd name becomes forever 
attached to the form and makes it ridiculous. 
There was a time, many years ago, when be- 
cause of its mobility we called the sphere 
"Willie Sphere"; because of its stability or 
lack of ability to move rapidly, we called the 
cube "Grandmother Cube," and because of 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 47 

the two elements found in the cylinder, we 
called it "Sister Cylinder," and showed that 
it could either move with the cylinder or 
stand with the cube, thus suggesting a certain 
amount of adjustment, such as might be ex- 
pected of the little sister who could under- 
stand and meet the needs of both her brother 
and her grandmother. Had this style of nam- 
ing the objects sprung out of the child's ex- 
perience, and been retained only as long as it 
helped to interpret the experience, it would 
have served its purpose and not brought such 
discredit upon the material. Instead of that, 
these forms, in any use that followed, were 
called by the names derived in such a play, 
and their simple, dignified and proper names 
had no place and no significance. Each object 
in the world must have a name, and the know- 
ing of that name shows one phase of control 
of the object. This we see illustrated in many 
folk-tales; — in the German " Rumpelstilt- 
chen," in the English **Tom Tit Tot," and in 
the Scandinavian "The God whose name 
man dared not utter." This was in the days 
when mythology was made, and when know- 
ing and uttering the name would have seemed 



48 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

to a child-like people to represent control over 
that which was too great to comprehend. 

If gradual acquisition of the power to name 
the objects which make up our physical en- 
vironment is a phase of human development 
and marks our intellectual mastery of the 
world in which we live, it is a phase which 
must not be denied the little child. We must 
help him to acquire the names of objects, and 
the names he acquires must be the right ones. 
We do not hesitate in speaking even to the 
youngest child to call a mountain a mountain, 
a volcano a volcano, an elephant an elephant, 
or a hippopotamus a hippopotamus. How 
absurd it is then to invent wholly fanciful 
names for the spheres, cubes, and cylinders 
which we are actually handling and investing 
with the expanding interests of play! It is just 
as easy for a child to call the form he plays 
with cylinder as barrel, even though he does 
not understand the word and finds it hard to 
pronounce; he finds the same difficulty in look- 
ing at and naming the animals in the Zoo or 
in his picture-book. When he handles these 
same objects in the form of beads and says 
as he strings them that he will put on so 



FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 49 

many "apples," so many *' boxes," so many 
"barrels," or so many "Willie Spheres," or 
"Grandmother Cubes," we recognize the ab- 
surdity and doubtless set about to correct 
it. Giving the right name to a form is not 
attempting to teach the child all about that 
form. Associating the right names with these 
three geometric forms does not mean teaching 
the child geometry, but it does mean recog- 
nizing his growing intelligence. 

In the kindergarten the child is constantly 
correcting and increasing his vocabulary as 
well as his experiences and ideas, and the 
manner and the success of this process will 
depend upon the teacher's discrimination and 
judgment. There are numberless means to 
this end in the use of every kindergarten ma- 
terial. It does not come about through in- 
struction, but through example, and a most 
excellent beginning is to call things by the 
right names ourselves. Some time ago some 
kindergartners had a habit of introducing the 
adjective "little" on every occasion, until the 
layman began to feel that it was a part of 
the "system." Not only was it used in con- 
nection with material things, but was finally 



50 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

transferred to the children themselves, and we 
heard them called "little people," "little 
friends," until one would have thought there 
was some disgrace attached to being known 
as "children." 



CHAPTER III 

THE BUILDING GIFTS — THIRD TO SIXTH 
GIFTS 

The Third Gift 

The third gift is a wooden cube divided 
into eight equal cubes. 

Every young child instinctively puts things 
together and takes them apart, not for the 
sake of accomplishing any definite thing, not 
at first because he wants to see what he can 
do with them, but just because he has a cer- 
tain instinctive curiosity which impels him to 
handle every thing that comes within his 
reach. 

It is at this stage of his development that 
we see him on the nursery floor, opening and 
shutting a box over and over again, taking 
a cork out of a bottle and putting it back or 
attempting to do so numberless times, taking 
from tables and shelves every available piece 
of bric-a-brac, pulling things out of drawers 
and stuffing them back or leaving them on 
the floor, and numerous other acts of the same 



52 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

kind. During this period some of the Mon- 
tessori material would doubtless make a 
strong appeal to him. Taking out and putting 
back into their corresponding holes in the long 
blocks of solid wood the cylinders of different 
dimensions will probably have as much attrac- 
tion for him in the nursery as did the taking 
of the lid off the box or the cork out of the 
bottle. 

Froebel, however, would lead the child 
from mere handling — the simple activity of 
taking apart and putting together — to pro- 
ductive or creative self -activity. In other 
words he proposed to take account of the de- 
velopment from mere instinctive curiosity to 
genuine intellectual interest, and his kinder- 
garten materials were designed with this pur- 
pose in view. 

Instinctive curiosity leads to handling, do- 
ing, experimenting; in turn the result achieved 
gives to the doing a greater interest and the 
next act is more conscious, more intelligent. 
The teacher who is keen of vision and con- 
scious of her mission will see this possibility 
and develop it; she will see that result as 
pointing to a better or different activity which 



BUILDING GIFTS 53 

in turn will bring about a better result, and 
will not make the mistake of seeing it as an 
end in itself rather than a step in a process. 

The third gift, with its eight small cubes of 
equal size, becomes a normal stimulus through 
which instinctive curiosity may develop into 
that intellectual interest we so much desire. 

The children's responses to this gift will be 
twofold: 1. taking to pieces and spreading 
out; 2. taking to pieces and piling up. Know- 
ing that these two typical activities will be 
stimulated by this material, we ask ourselves, 
"Of what value is each form of response.'^" 
Once more the value of present experience 
must be measured by our standard, which has 
meaning only in its relation to the far-off goal 
that is our guide. In turn the far-off goal is 
valuable only as it shapes and fashions the 
immediate next step in any experience. 

The taking apart will have more meaning, 
can be better controlled and can become a 
means of organizing the group activity if con- 
certed action is introduced. For instance, let 
each child take down one block and put it 
on the table, take another, put it on the table, 
and another, and so on, until all have been 



54 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

handled. Here, though there is unity of ac- 
tion, there is variety in individual responses; 
Due child will place them at random anywhere, 
without any feeling of relation; another will 
be stimulated by the rather rhythmic direc- 
tion of the teacher to place one after another 
in such a way as to suggest arrangement in its 
simplest form. This more suggestive and val- 
uable response will help the teacher to select 
rhythm as a possible basis of organization of 
group activity. 

If a number of children standing on the 
circle grow restless and begin making a noise 
with their feet, the wise teacher will happily 
utilize or organize this activity, make it a 
means of gaining control instead of losing it. 
Instantly they will respond as a group to the 
rhythm of the piano or her voice, and that 
which was but a meaningless or even a law- 
less activity now becomes a means of grow- 
ing self-control. In the same manner, adopt- 
ing the suggestion of one child's response of a 
simpler, more rhythmic arrangement of the 
blocks, the teacher can ask to have the sec- 
ond block placed near the first, the next near 
that, etc., until all are placed. Though all the 



BUILDING GIFTS 55 

children in the group are doing the same thing, 
yet each one may be doing it in his own way. 
Though the teacher places some form of lim- 
itation on the work of the group as a whole, 
yet she makes it such that every child is free 
under that limitation to show some initiative. 
So here the limitation is that one must be near 
the other, there must be some relation, and 
various results may occur. (See Appendix, 
Figs. 1-7.) 

Naturally, the teacher's emphasis will be 
put upon such placing as will lead to more 
conscious arrangement and ultimately to de- 
sign. Border patterns and "beauty forms'* 
may grow out of an interest in merely placing 
blocks near each other, and by deepening his 
appreciation of arrangement and symmetrical 
design may finally come to mean something 
in the child's experience. 

At first in both border patterns and sym- 
metrical designs, the teacher's emphasis is on 
mere placing, on doing, with developing ap- 
preciation of the rhythm, symmetry, balance 
felt in the forms produced. Arrangement in 
one way suggests possible arrangement in an- 
other. One child may be asked to place one 



56 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

block some other way, then all do the same 
thing and repeat until all the blocks have been 
placed. Then some one else may make an- 
other change and all may do the same until 
the entire eight have been changed and a dif- 
ferent border or arrangement is the result. 
In such work, first one child and then another 
has an opportunity to do original work, and 
yet there is unity in the work of the group. 
To keep the right relation between the indi- 
vidual and the group (implying freedom and 
law, spontaneity and control, initiative and 
guidance) is one of our problems, and the 
gifts furnish an excellent medium through 
which to attempt its solution. 

Accordingly the second response (taking 
apart and piling up) may be begun in an 
equally simple and suggestive way. One block 
may be taken from the whole cube and placed 
on the table; another may be placed any- 
where the child likes, etc. Before, the children 
were asked to place each block on the table; 
now they are left free to place the second one 
where they wish; as a result, some child will 
surely place one on top of another. If, how- 
ever, this suggestion does not happen to come 



BUILDING GIFTS 57 

from any child in the group and yet is needed 
to be the beginning of a valuable process, it 
must come from the teacher. 

A new relation of the blocks is suggestive 
of a new idea, and in this case, as in all others, 
the idea is very general at first — mere piling, 
varied according to individual suggestions — 
but adding to every child's skill in handling. 
There may be high piles, low piles, one pile, 
or more piles, always working toward better 
and more careful piling, as this is the basis of 
all later construction. 

To every American child these piles will 
almost immediately suggest something, and 
more meaning will be given to activity 
through naming these things. The idea is 
emerging out of the activity, and the very 
next step is that it must work back upon and 
control the activity. The form suggested may 
be a tree, a telegraph pole, a high building, or 
the like, but the next time it must be a better 
tree, a better telegraph pole or a better high 
building. Whatever form the teacher selects 
is to be made better by each child in his own 
way. Then the group may again be unified 
by the teacher's selecting the most appro- 



58 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

priate form for giving all children greater con- 
trol (not the special best which some child of 
genius may have made and which may be 
technically beyond the ability of the group), 
and having each child make it in that way. 
This form may again be varied by the indi- 
vidual and shared by the group, or a still bet- 
ter standard may be given by the teacher, 
after the children's experimentations, and all 
may be united through making what she pro- 
poses. **Thus enriching his life by the life of 
others," says Froebel, "he solves the problem 
of development." 

The process is an endless one of interaction 
between teacher and group and between child 
and other children: the teacher on the one 
hand noting the changing impulses, tenden- 
cies, interests, and attitudes of her children 
and providing the proper stimulus for setting 
free their growing powers; the children on the 
other hand getting their suggestions from one 
another and from the teacher, and growing 
in the power of handling the material. The 
child's technique may thus become equal to 
the expression of his emerging ideas, as they 
become clearer and more interesting and de- 



BUILDING GIFTS 59 

mand other means of expression. An idea once 
emerged can never be crowded back into its 
vague corner of the brain, but must ever ex- 
pand through being put into form. An act can 
never be purely impulsive after the first ex- 
pression, for immediately it suggests some 
thought or idea, and the teacher's place is to 
keep a balance between the growing sugges- 
tion and the power of expression — that is, 
between ideas and technique. 

In the use of the building gifts, while the 
emphasis is yet on the doing, — the moving 
of blocks and changing their positions, — and 
while the chief interest is still in activity for 
its own sake rather than for the sake of an 
end, we see how simply and naturally a ra- 
tional sequence comes to have a place; but 
later when the idea has emerged clearly enough 
to control the activity and to demand a greater 
variety in the building material (say, perhaps, 
in the fifth and sixth gifts together), we can 
also see that it is not so much changing one 
thing into another as it is the perfection of 
the one thing which interests the child. If, 
therefore, we would expect the child's work 
to grow into a more and more conscious use 



60 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

and control of his own power and to effect a 
gradual transition from activity for its own 
sake to activity for the sake of an end, while 
carrying over the same spirit of joy and inter- 
est as was felt in the earlier aspect of activity, 
it is clear that more time is to be given to the 
construction of the particular form. 

No matter what the gift or what the stage 
of development, there is never a time when 
the process should cease to be one of interac- 
tion. The teacher's part may sometimes be 
but a discriminating commendation or correc- 
tion of the work of one or more children or the 
work of the whole group; or she may for the 
moment devote herself to implanting in some 
one child the consciousness of a better stand- 
ard. Even when she thus singles out an indi- 
vidual, if the process is a vitally interactive 
one, every other child in the group will be 
able to improve his own work as a result of 
observing this child's strength or weakness. 

There is no one of us who does not realize 
how large a part of our education, of our own 
development, is due to our social intercourse, 
to the suggestions of others, perhaps uncon- 
sciously given and almost unconsciously re- 



BUILDING GIFTS 61 

ceived. How often has the contribution of 
some student in the classroom helped more to 
solve our problem than the explanation of the 
instructor! How often has the searching ques- 
tion of a classmate answered an unasked ques- 
tion in our own mind ! Good teaching, whether 
in the kindergarten or in the university, takes 
this into account, and the good teacher is the 
one who is quick to see the value in any sug- 
gestion or question, to see its bearing on the 
whole subject, to make it an organic part of 
the experience of the group, thus enriching 
the life of the individual through the life of 
the group and helping to solve the problem of 
development. 

To encourage the child to give as well as 
take is to encourage activity on the part of the 
student instead of leaving it to the teacher to 
supply all the initiative; but this can be done 
only when the teacher's abihty to see the valu- 
able thing and utilize it in her organization 
of group activity is felt by the student and 
stimulates him to make further contributions. 

The general method I am suggesting is al- 
ways .one of intelligent interaction which 
makes use of various special methods implied 



62 USE OF THE E2NDERGARTEN GIFTS 

in the old familiar terms, "imitation," "sug- 
gestion," and "dictation." If we omit imita- 
tion, we are omitting one of the first funda- 
mental means by which the child tries to 
understand life; but it must be imitation of the 
doing rather than the thing done, of the activ- 
ity rather than the act, of the spirit rather than 
the letter. If we omit suggestion, we are fail- 
ing in our social purpose of impelling each to 
share the life of others to the enrichment of 
his own; but it must be the suggestions which 
arise in the work of the group, gathered from 
both children and teacher, and not the hyp- 
notic suggestions of the type of teacher whose 
children have the reputation of "always do- 
ing just the thing she wants them to do." If 
we omit dictation, we are faihng in our pur- 
pose of helping the child to come into that 
larger spiritual inheritance which is his by 
race right; but it must be a dictation intended 
to correct, to amplify, and to enlarge the 
child's experience, to raise his standard, to lift 
him to ever higher levels of consciousness, and 
not simply the dictation which tells him to do 
something that the teacher has herself at one 
time happened to do. 



BUILDING GIFTS 63 

Though I have mentioned these so-called 
special methods separately, I want to say that 
they are valuable only when they are not 
separated, but are parts of that larger method 
of interaction which necessitates emphasis 
now upon one, now upon another, but least of 
all upon dictation. Perhaps if I were not 
afraid of being misunderstood, I might sub- 
stitute for dictation the word direction. But 
I should have to add then that in every indi- 
vidual's education, from the time of his ex- 
perimentation in the kindergarten until he is 
doing research work in the university, there 
are certain things he must do, and must be 
told how to do; the whole point is in having 
such experiences come in their right place and 
time and relation. 

Growth comes in this twofold way, through 
the acquisition of individual experience as 
represented by the individual himself and the 
other children in the group; and through the 
assimilation of race experience as represented 
by the teacher. 

In observing children's responses to this 
material we have noted that the first step 
was mere handling, activity, and from this to 



64 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

arrangement, from arrangement to rearrange- 
ment, which results in (a) representation on 
the one hand and (6) design on the other. 

"Representation" concerns itself with what 
Froebel calls "forms of life" — the products 
of the child's activity when he attempts to 
reproduce objects with which he comes into 
contact in his daily life, such as houses, chairs, 
beds, tables, churches, stores, playthings, tools, 
and so on. 

Under "design" we include what Froebel 
calls "forms of beauty" — those forms which, 
in taking shape in the arrangement of ma- 
terial, embody the principles of symmetry, 
proportion, balance, strength of center, and 
simplicity of outline. 

In addition to these Froebel emphasizes a 
third type, which he calls "forms of knowl- 
edge." This type includes those mathemati- 
cal forms which may themselves be the basis 
of either "forms of life" or "forms of beauty" 
— those forms, in other words, which in the 
making involve a knowledge of form, number, 
size, position, and direction. These are forms 
through which the child may become more 
conscious of what he makes and how he makes 



BUILDING GIFTS 65 

it, and may gain a clearer knowledge of form 
itself and of number which is a part of it. 

Although we may separate the three for the 
sake of convenience in studying and experi- 
menting with them, still we must remember 
that in the life of the little child they have 
not yet become differentiated. All forms are 
"life" forms, somehow connected with the 
personal life of the child as it moves on, color- 
ing everything it touches. The smallest or 
the biggest thing is freighted for him with life 
interest, and nothing is merely symmetrical, 
or merely mathematical; symmetry or any 
other mathematical quality constitutes an ex- 
tra or superadded interest over and beyond 
the vital interest which is its essence for him. 

In the making of either forms of life or 
forms of beauty, his knowledge of form, num- 
ber, position, size, direction, etc., may be 
deepened far more effectively than could be 
possible if such work were wholly differen- 
tiated or lifted out of his more personal and 
human interests. As soon as a child makes a 
pile of blocks eight blocks high and one block 
thick, it becomes associated with his life; it 
is something which he names, and his knowl- 



66 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

edge of number, form, etc., is tested in this 
practical application. Knowing that this can 
be done and how, we must still remind our- 
selves that all young children are far more in- 
terested in what they can do with such ma- 
terial than in what the teacher has to say or to 
ask them about it. However, there are times 
when the children can be given certain prob- 
lems to work out — the result being depend- 
ent upon their knowledge of number, form, 
etc., gained through their previous use of ma- 
terial. "Every one make a wall that shall be 
four blocks long, two blocks high and one 
block thick"; "a well that is two blocks 
deep"; "a box that is two blocks square"; 
"use half of your blocks to make a wall and 
the other half to make a building " ; " make two 
things exactly alike, using half of your blocks 
in each"; "make two different things using 
the same number of blocks in each." Puzzles 
or problems of this kind interest young chil- 
dren, just as puzzles of a different nature in- 
terest older ones. They mean a test of power, 
an application of knowledge which has been 
gained in some vital experience. Carried too 
far, however, or handled by some unwise 



BUILDING GIFTS 67 

• teacher, they become deadening and formal 
in the extreme. The difficulty is one that lies 
with the teacher and with her understanding 
of the whole problem, and that is just the 
point which must be brought to her con- 
sciousness: that neither "forms of life," 
"forms of beauty," nor "forms of knowl- 
edge" are ends in themselves — but means 
through which every child may be helped to 
gain mastery of the material world about 
him. 

Number is already a part of every child's 
experience when he comes to kindergarten, and 
our part is to give it more meaning and an 
organic place in his thinking and doing. When 
he begins to take first one thing and then an- 
other from a pile or mass and relate them in 
other ways, placing each kind in its own group, 
he is beginning to count. To be sure, he knows 
no words yet with which to describe his activ- 
ity so that you or I could understand, but he 
is dealing with the successive phase of num- 
ber as he takes them out, and with the quan- 
titative phase as he puts each kind in its own 
group. His first efforts at counting may be 
"one, two, three, eleven, fifteen, seven, two. 



68 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

five," etc. ; but if he relates the object with a 
numerical symbol (even though an incorrect 
one), it is a legitimate step in his develop- 
ment toward consciousness of number. At 
first, if there are many objects, it is difficult to 
name them and touch them at the same time; 
the child will often skip either the object or 
the number — more frequently the latter, 
because of the fascination of saying one num- 
ber after another, regardless of order. We 
have numberless instances in the "counting 
out rhymes" known by all children of that 
fascination of successive sounds which, though 
quite unintelligible to a listening "outsider," 
mean to the one uttering them an orderly 
succession of things. 

Gradually, by beginning with this elemen- 
tary mathematical sense, which is the child's 
own contribution, the teacher helps him 
through the various materials of the kinder- 
garten, to a growing consciousness of number. 
It is not an amount of information to be given 
so much as it is an amount of special knowl- 
edge which experience will develop and extend 
in such a way that it will function in future 
experience. 



BUILDING GIFTS 69 

The Fourth Gift 

The fourth gift is a wooden cube divided 
into eight equal oblong prisms. 

Even the first experimentation with any 
material, in order to be of value to the child 
and free him in the use of it, should be some- 
what controlled by the teacher. 

"Direction or guidance," says Dr. Dewey, 
**is not external imposition; but it is freeing 
the life process for its own most adequate ful- 
fillment." Realizing just what this means, no 
teacher can stand aside and fold her hands, 
merely observing children's activities. The 
real teacher must give them opportunity to 
use their own initiative and must then limit 
it in such a way as will conserve it, and direct 
it in such a way that they will soon become 
conscious of their own power. Clearer per- 
cepts, clearer images, clearer ideas demand for 
their expression a greater variety in the ma- 
terials used. This need would seem to be 
admirably met by Froebel in his whole series 
of gifts and especially felt in the relation of 
these four building gifts. Thus the oblong 
blocks of the fourth gift offer a natural transi- 



70 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

tion from the cubes of the third gift, in respect 
to the greater range of possibilities in the way 
of placing, arranging, and relating. 

In presenting the gift, after the boxes are 
removed from the blocks and put under the 
chairs, each child may take off one block, thus 
discovering that it is a new kind, and place it 
on the table. At once, we see the larger op- 
portunity for spontaneity; although there is 
unity in the activity of the group, there is 
place for individual initiative. See Appen- 
dix, Figs. 8-15, for characteristic individual 
variations. 

Any one of these positions may be selected 
by the teacher, and all the children may be 
asked to place theirs in the same way. Then 
another position may be selected, and all of 
the group again do the same thing, and an- 
other, until each individual has had an op- 
portunity to handle the blocks and place 
them in every typical position. With these 
new blocks the children are eager to experi- 
ment, and the teacher, putting her emphasis 
at first upon mere handling and placing, then 
on arranging more and more consciously, not 
stopping to analyze or talk much about the 



BUILDING GIFTS 71 

operation, will be able to keep her group to- 
gether, to help every individual profit by the 
experience of all the others, and to discover 
various interesting things about these new 
blocks. 

Besides placing each block on the table and 
so getting rhythmical or symmetrical arrange- 
ment of material, after the first one is taken 
off and placed on the table, the second may 
be placed on the first in some way, and so on 
until each child has made a pile of all his 
blocks. Here we have the same responses to 
this material that we had to the last, and the 
same general activity but varied in its form 
of expression because of the difference in ma- 
terial. There has been general piling, but 
what are the results and why do they differ .^^ 
The teacher has emphasized the placing of all 
blocks on the same face that the first one was 
placed on, and so we find high piles, low piles, 
and middle-sized piles. In trying to account 
for these differences in height of piles, the 
children will begin to think, and the thought 
will grow clearer as all together make the 
same kind of pile that each individual has 
made. (See Figs. 16-19.) 



72 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

Our question is constantly, how can we lead 
from these first responses to a more conscious 
control of the new material? Are we simply 
accepting children's contributions, or, if not, 
what must be our part as teachers? 

The teacher's part is to discriminate and 
select for emphasis that which she knows to 
be valuable, not in bringing about a partic- 
ular result, but in gaining greater power, in 
helping the child to find more to express and 
to attain to better expressive technique. Both 
of these ends will demand more flexible ma- 
terial, which we shall find in each new gift as 
it is presented, and this greater flexibihty in 
turn will demand greater physical and greater 
intellectual control. 

The work of the group may be controlled 
through the making of units with a limited 
number of blocks, allowance being made at 
the same time for the play of individual choice 
of combinations within the limitation. Each 
child may take two blocks and put them to- 
gether any way he likes. The following and 
other units may appear. (See Figs. 20-28.) 
One of these may be selected by the teacher 
and made by all the children and then re- 



BUILDING GIFTS 73 

peated as many times as the number of blocks 
will permit. This means that each will make 
four units. Then these four may be put to- 
gether in any way that each individual may 
choose. Here again is opportunity for indi- 
vidual expression while the group is being 
bound together through a common activity. 
Another time another unit may be selected 
and all the children use that, repeating and 
arranging each in his own way; or each may 
keep his own unit, repeat it and arrange it as 
he likes; or half of the group may take one 
unit and half another and see how many 
things they can do with them. In this play 
with the material the limitation imposed gives 
a wonderful control over the blocks; it helps 
the child to gain that skill in handling which is 
so essential to his more consciously creative 
work later on, and helps him to realize pos- 
sibilities which he would never discover and 
make his own, if left entirely free in his play. 
It will be instructive now to take just one 
unit and see what can be done by repeating 
and relating or combining it with the other 
three in different ways. It is evident that 
there is a wide range of possibility for individ- 



74 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

ual variations, even when all are limited to the 
use of the same miit. (See Figs. 20, 29, 30, 
31, 32, 33.) 

As these forms are built up by just putting 
the blocks together first one way and then an- 
other, different ideas emerge; benches, street 
cars, high buildings, etc., are suggested, and 
very soon the idea becomes so strong that 
from the very opening of the box the child 
wants to build some particular thing. 

Having handled the blocks individually, in 
many different ways, also in many different 
combinations, he now has sufficient control 
of his material to begin to try to express an 
idea. He knows what will be the result when 
he puts two blocks together, so he has the 
courage and the intelligence to attempt the 
operation with a greater number. Once more 
the teacher guides and directs his activity, 
and even limits it by asking him to do some- 
thing which she realizes can be done with this 
kind and amount of material. Perhaps the 
children make the attempt freely; some are 
successful in getting a suggestive form while 
others are led away from the idea by the mere 
manipulation of the material. Some child's 



BUILDING GIFTS 75 

suggestion may be selected and worked out 
by all; or some particularly good form may be 
selected and the children told how to make it; 
or the teacher may suggest how each child can 
improve his own by some sHght change; or 
she herseK may show them and tell them how 
to build a better form, but in such a simple 
way that every child can do it. 

Sometimes the children's ideas grow so 
rapidly that the material they have is inade- 
quate in respect to quantity or variety for the 
expression of them. And just here the need 
can be happily met by using the third and 
fourth gifts together. 

Naturally these gifts are both old friends to 
whom the children need no introduction, so 
one might suppose it would be a good plan 
simply to see what they will do by themselves 
when they have the two in combination for 
the first time. 

Some may experiment in one way and an- 
other, some may go to work immediately for 
a result; but at some time during the period 
of experimentation the teacher will find it 
necessary to organize their work. Thus, in 
order to make the children more free in their 



76 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

first use of so much material, each one may 
take one of the third gift cubes and one of the 
fourth gift bricks and put them together in 
some way. Take another of each and put 
them together in another way, then two more, 
and so on, until all the blocks have been used. 
Now each child has eight units, and as no two 
have just the same eight, there are quite a 
number from which to select. Each individ- 
ual has had a chance to express himself freely 
in combining these two in various ways, and 
now the group may be unified by the selec- 
tion of one unit which all will make and re- 
peat as many times as they can with their 
number of blocks. The teacher's wide knowl- 
edge of her material and its great possibili- 
ties will enable her to make a wise selection. 
The form or unit chosen should be one which 
can be made easily by every child in the group, 
— one which when repeated combines readily 
with its like in such a way as to suggest fur- 
ther possibilities. All are not equally good 
judged in this way. In order to discriminate 
wisely, the teacher must have made all possi- 
ble units herself, and must have combined 
them in all possible ways. For one who has not 



BUILDING GIFTS 77 

experimented in this way, there is a wide field 
of fascinating revelations ahead. (See Figs. 
34-40. See Fig. 37 for one that will be easi- 
est to handle and most suggestive in its form 
both by itself and in relation to others.) 

This form is selected and each child makes 
as many as he can. Dm-ing the making a 
somewhat more definitely suggestive arrange- 
ment will naturally take place; in fact, follow- 
ing similar work done with the third and fourth 
gifts separately, it will be done more con- 
sciously here than there. Noting that there is 
some consciousness of arrangement in the 
group, the teacher will encourage every child 
now to work more consciously and suggests 
that each one arrange his own in any way that 
he likes. As in all other social groups, there 
will be differences among the members : there 
will be the individual absorbed in his own 
activity who gets from it his own idea and 
works away regardless of what the others are 
doing; the individual who has to look to his 
neighbor, takes a suggestion and through 
some slight variation makes the idea his own; 
and the one who does not have spontaneity 
enough to vary another's idea but imitates 



78 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

his neighbor's work as it is. In each of these 
responses to the situation, the teacher sees 
the possibiHty of growth for the individual or 
retardation, and presents her further stimulus 
accordingly. 

Some of the possible arrangements of this 
chosen unit may be seen in Figures 41-45. 
Naturally these arrangements suggest certain 
ideas; and the next step may be to try to 
express these ideas in a more satisfactory way, 
at first perhaps continuing to use the unit and 
depending upon arrangement for the further 
carrying out of the idea, or perhaps discard- 
ing the unit altogether and letting each child 
attempt to express the idea or "make the 
thing" in his own way. Just as one move of 
these units suggested another move, so one 
idea suggests another idea, and the children 
may be led on to more creative work in un- 
broken continuity. If the group is held to- 
gether by using the same unit, it is not quite 
so hard to control the activity in such a way 
as to give it value; but if it is the freer indi- 
vidual attempt at expressing the idea, the 
keenest discrimination, the greatest wisdom, 
the best judgment, the most intelligent sym- 



BUILDING GIFTS 79 

pathy and understanding are required on the 
part of the teacher, to make every child's 
work worth while. If the one unit suggests a 
chair, as it often does, several may suggest 
those in the kindergarten, and here the idea 
of other kindergarten furniture emerges and 
may be developed through the guidance of the 
teacher. 

Sometimes after having worked with the 
eight units of one kind and gained some skill 
in handling and thinking, the children may be 
asked to keep half of them and put them to- 
gether some way, and then use the rest of the 
blocks any way they like. These four might 
be put together in the same way and the others 
used freely, or they might be put together 
any way, the only limitation being that the 
four are kept and used. (See Fig. 39.) It might 
be repeated three times (see Fig. 46) by all, 
then the other blocks added in various ways. 
(See Figs. 47-49.) 

Or the four units might be arranged as each 
child wishes and then the remaining blocks 
added in some way. This can be so easily 
worked out that I shall not try to illustrate 
with drawings. From these various experi- 



80 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

mentations may come the idea of some par- 
ticular kind of building or kind of construc- 
tion, say a gateway, and the teacher will 
doubtless be quick to see in this a suggestion 
for the following lesson with the same ma- 
terial. When that time comes, remembering 
that each lesson with any material is related 
to a process that means growing control, the 
teacher may ask the children if they remember 
the gateway that some of them made the last 
time, and may then tell them that this time 
each one is to make the very best gateway 
that he can by using the material in any way 
that he likes. These efforts will bring some 
interesting results and perhaps one or two 
good ones, the teacher's observation, com- 
mendation and criticism stimulating a higher 
type of work in the group. One form may be 
quite good enough to be made by all, thus 
raising all to a higher level through a standard 
found in the group. Possibly one may have a 
very good arrangement of the central or most 
important blocks, and this may be chosen as 
the best means of making all the children more 
conscious of better construction, while they 
are still free to vary their gateways by placing 



BUILDING GIFTS 81 

the remaining blocks as they choose. If, after 
each child has really tried his best, no form 
seemed good enough to be repeated even in 
part by the group, then the teacher might give 
them either a good basis and let each one fin- 
ish it in his own way, or she might give a 
whole good form, simply made, which would 
correct their own ideas and give them a better 
standard for future work. 

Numerous suggestions arise for a more 
comparative use of these two gifts. Make a 
unit with two third gift cubes and one with 
two fourth gift bricks and then put them to- 
gether in some way. Do this with all the 
blocks, or do it with half and use the rest 
freely. The child cannot help making com- 
parisons when he works in this way, some- 
times putting these comparisons into words 
and sometimes not. Each child may use half 
of his third gift blocks in one unit and half of 
his fourth in another, then relate them some- 
how and add the remaining blocks; or the 
third gift may remain an unbroken cube and 
the fourth gift blocks may be used in relation 
to it; or something may be made with the 
whole of one gift, and the other blocks used 



82 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

in some relation to it. In this way both forms 
of life and forms of beauty may be developed. 

With the third gift the longest possible 
wall may be made, then with the fourth the 
longest possible, and the children are inter- 
ested in the discovery they make as they see 
the two side by side. With the third the high- 
est pile may be made, then the same with the 
fourth; with the third the longest platform or 
sidewalk, the same with the fourth; with the 
third the deepest well, then with the fourth; 
with the third the largest or the smallest well 
or space enclosed, and then with the fourth. 
Each problem as it is worked out gives the 
child an added feeling of power and the cour- 
age to try another. 

In the beginning of making units, the chil- 
dren themselves might select the one they 
wish to repeat, having all on the table before 
them from which to choose, or, better still, 
out of the three or four which the teacher 
finds the most valuable and suggestive, they 
may make their selection, saving the possible 
choosing of one which would be merely a waste 
of time to reproduce and repeat. Again we 
see how the teacher, when she limits the choice 



BUILDING GIFTS 83 

to one of four instead of twenty, has made the 
hmitation a means of freeing the child, con- 
serving his energy and making his work more 
valuable. Individual choice from a limited 
number of good units develops a child's ap- 
preciative power and becomes a good basis 
for development of his constructive power 
later. 

The Fifth Gift 

The fifth gift is a cube divided into twenty- 
seven equal cubes, three of which are sub- 
divided into halves by diagonal planes, and 
three of which are subdivided into quarters 
by the crossing of two diagonal planes. 

The child who has played wdth the sixteen 
blocks of the third and fourth gifts together 
has gained considerable control in his han- 
dling, clearer images of the forms he has been 
constructing, and a deepening appreciation 
of construction or good building; and all of 
this growth accordingly demands more ma- 
terial and a greater variety as a means of ex- 
pression. The fifth gift meets this need. 

Since a larger amount of material with 
somewhat novel forms is rather confusing the 



84 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

use of it should to some extent be directed by 
the teacher from the very first. With both old 
and new forms at hand we find that the child 
rather accepts the old, takes it for granted, 
and gives his attention to the new. Therefore, 
each child may take off one of the new kind of 
blocks, then another and another, and so on 
until all of that kind have been removed. One 
child may take off the half cubes, and another 
the quarters, giving opportunity to discover 
that there are more of one kind than of the 
other. In like manner, a second discovery 
may be to note the difference in size; this 
may immediately follow, though the discovery 
does not imply as yet an understanding of 
the relation of these parts to the whole. To 
the child they are merely the large triangular 
prisms and the small ones; later, of course, 
they may come to be half and quarter cubes. 
Just here a further plea may perhaps be made 
that the right name should be given to a form 
at the beginning. Because a child calls the 
triangular prism a tent when he first plays 
with it is no reason why it should continue to 
be so called throughout the entire work with 
the gift. Of course he does not understand 



BUILDING GIFTS 85 

what is meant by "triangular prism," but 
neither does he understand anything more 
about the meaning of "engine" than it is a 
name for the thing he sees. The placing of 
these triangular prisms on the table will (fol- 
lowing the play with the two other building 
gifts) immediately suggest some sort of ar- 
rangement, and this arrangement or even the 
individual block may suggest some idea to one 
or more children in the group. Some one calls 
it a tent; accordingly a different arrangement 
may have to be made, and a place found for all 
the new blocks large and small. This play 
may be very absorbing and may occupy so 
much time that the familiar blocks remain un- 
touched, or, left as they are, may bear some 
relation to the encampment in the foreground. 
Another means of control through an im- 
posed limitation may be the selection of one 
old and one new block, a cube and a triangu- 
lar prism, to be put together in some new 
way. Different combinations will be made, 
but doubtless the most general and sugges- 
tive one will be the triangular prism put on 
the cube in such a way as to suggest a house. 
This repeated as many times as possible gives 



86 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

a number of houses, and leaves three cubes 
uncovered and unused. The number of houses 
may suggest a street with a row of houses on 
either side, or they may be so arranged as to 
suggest more than one street. Houses with 
larger roofs may be put in one group and those 
with smaller in another, or there may as yet 
be no such discrimination, all being merely 
houses in a village or city. One child may find 
a good and suggestive use for his three ex- 
tra cubes, while others leave them unused 
through the entire period. It may be well to 
suggest in this connection that it would seem 
preferable that each child should in time 
utilize all his material; but it must be a grow- 
ing thing, the teacher encouraging it step by 
step, and not simply forcing a use of extra 
blocks when they have no real meaning in re- 
lation to the whole. 

It is very difficult to realize by what slow 
processes little children gain control over any 
material. They need to handle it repeatedly, 
at the same time varying the repetitions in 
such a manner as to avoid the dullness of mere 
drill. This large number of houses will no 
doubt suggest a town or city, and then other 



BUILDING GIFTS 87 

ideas emerge and may be worked out through 
the children's interest and the teacher's guid- 
ance. In a city, are all houses the same size? 
If not, we might leave some of ours small and 
make others larger. How could this be done? 
Children will, of course, suggest different ways : 
move one up beside another; put one in front 
of another; put one on top of another. Each 
child may alter and combine his blocks in 
these ways. 

Another question is suggested possibly by 
the children, possibly by the teacher as a mem- 
ber of the group. Are all the houses in a city 
made to live in? No. What other buildings 
are there? Churches, schools, stores, stations, 
libraries, markets, etc. When one of these 
has been chosen by the children to make, if 
the teacher observes that the children in their 
efforts are conscious of a lack of power in the 
use of this material, she will plan that her 
next step in this process shall move in the di- 
rection of better control of the material, in 
order that it may be a more adequate means 
of expression for the growing ideas. 

The next lesson may be the making of 
houses with good roofs that fit. The children 



88 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

may begin with a small house made of eight 
cubes, and then be given four of the larger 
triangular prisms with which to make a roof, 
or allowed to select the number needed from 
all the triangular prisms. The limited number 
makes the child freer in his experimentation, 
as there is less confusion than when the amount 
of materials is unlimited. Possibly a larger 
foundation for the house would be better — 
three blocks (cubes) square, say, and two 
blocks (cubes) high; then each child has three 
cubes and all the triangular prisms left to use. 
This foundation might remain unchanged, 
and with what materials he has left each child 
might make his roof in the best way he could. 
After he has done his best, there will be some 
blocks left over which will be used in various 
ways by different children (for doors, win- 
dows, chimneys, etc.), or left unused. The 
keeping of the same foundation while leaving 
opportunity for variation in the placing of the 
extra blocks will result in suggestions for vari- 
ous kinds of buildings, such as dwelling-houses 
and churches. Each kind has its peculiar 
form or certain characteristic features. The 
house may have its chimney, its doors, or its 



BUILDING GIFTS 89 

windows, while the church will have its towers 
or steeples. Each child may have felt some- 
thing of this in his building; but he is to be 
made more conscious of it during this grow- 
ing process of social interaction. Some child 
may see a good church and tell why he thinks 
it a church instead of a dwelling-house; when 
this feature has been emphasized by the 
teacher, each one sets to work more con- 
sciously to improve his own. Among all the 
churches some one may be quite good enough 
to be repeated by the whole group, and the 
repetition will give each child a better idea of 
building. The child who made the good form 
may tell the others how he made it; or he 
may show them how and let them do it in the 
same way. When fair proficiency has been 
attained, more freedom may be given by re- 
moving the limitation which required the 
same position of the first eighteen cubes, and 
each child may work out his own idea in build- 
ing any kind of church he likes. Here again 
some one construction may serve to raise the 
standard of building in each child's experi- 
ence, if it is made by the whole group; or if 
one good enough for this purpose is not found, 



90 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

the best one the teacher can make may be 
given to the group. That lesson may then be 
followed by one in which each child is again 
given the free use of all his material to make 
the best church he can. The better sense of 
form which should develop from imitation 
of the teacher's model will thus be brought 
into play and tested. 

Sometimes the lesson may begin by the 
teacher's giving a limited number of blocks to 
be used in a definite way, with the direction 
that each child will use the remainder of his 
blocks as he chooses, without any limitation 
as to the special kind of building — dwelling, 
church, or school — that he is to construct. 
Sometimes a limited number placed in a def- 
inite form may be the foundation for a special 
kind of building which each child, using the 
remaining blocks, will complete as best he can. 

In a certain kind of work, suggested in con- 
nection with the third and fourth gifts, em- 
phasis was put upon division into two parts — 
halves. In connection with the fifth gift, di- 
vision into thirds may be emphasized. The 
approach might be made in some such way as 
this: the children might be asked to put one 



BUILDING GIFTS 91 

triangular prism on the table in a certain 
place, another of the same size in a different 
place and a third in a still different place; then 
to put another of the same kind in each cor- 
responding place until they were all used. 
Some would have three groups of large tri- 
angular prisms, and some three groups of 
small ones. Having noticed the difference in 
number in the two sizes, each child might 
divide his other triangular prisms in the same 
way, adding them one at a time to the same 
three piles. Then the cubes might be divided 
in the same way, until each child has the ma- 
terial of the entire gift separated into three 
equal parts. Using just one part (one third), 
each might be asked to make the very best 
form he could, and from the different forms 
constructed the teacher could select the one 

Q 

which would be most suggestive in improving 
the work of the entire group. This form might 
be made by all, or just the foundation might 
be chosen in order that each child might have 
opportunity to vary the use of the remaining 
blocks. One of the most simple and sugges- 
tive forms might then be selected by the 
teacher to be made by each child in the group. 



92 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

and this might be followed by each one doing 
exactly the same thing with each of his other 
two groups of blocks. Making something with 
one third and repeating it with the other two 
will impress the nature and value of division 
into thirds far more effectively than would 
any amount of verbal explanation in advance 
of the experience. Now each child may be 
asked to make some slight change in one of 
his three; then, the teacher having given her 
approval, to make the same change in the 
other two. One of the best of the resulting 
constructions might be selected for all to 
reproduce. When this has been done, some 
child might suggest a slight change, which in 
turn might be carried out by all; another child 
might suggest still another change, and this 
might be carried out in the same way, thus 
giving opportunity for individual initiative 
and for group unity. 

A difficulty will be found here which should 
put every teacher on her guard. In each 
group there will nearly always be two or three 
children who are more spontaneous than the 
others, and unless the teacher is wise and is 
working for the growth of every individual. 



BUILDING GIFTS 93 

she may constantly be led to accept the sug- 
gestions of the few to the detriment of the 
many. Leadership must of course be recog- 
nized and developed in the individual, but not 
at the expense of the social group. It is so 
fascinating to watch the development of one 
rather unusual individual, to see how quickly 
he responds to a suggestion and how intelli- 
gently he carries it farther, that there is al- 
ways danger that the less bright and spon- 
taneous child may be almost wholly neglected. 
It takes deep insight, genuine wisdom, and 
untold patience on the part of the teacher to 
give every child a fair chance, to stimulate 
the inactive child to wholesome activity, to 
encourage the discouraged, to see and nur- 
ture possibilities in the so-called incapable 
child, to arouse genuine interest in the indif- 
ferent one, to meet success in the capable child 
in such a way as to stimulate further effort 
rather than self-satisfaction. In other words, 
the type of teacher needed here is the same 
that is needed in every other grade of educa- 
tional work, including the university, — the 
teacher who has the larger vision, who sees 
the process that lies behind the product, who 



94 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

sees in the thing done the vitalizing quality 
of the doing, who sees in each particular act 
a guide to further action. 

The cry of the average mind is for results, 
results ! — for some external and tangible 
means of showing the public what the teacher 
is doing. How long it takes us to realize that 
the most vital and important thing a teacher 
can do for her children is not to be measured 
by material means ! It is true that power man- 
ifests itseK through deeds, but these are not 
ends; they are only means of developing fur- 
ther power. The child who does the clever 
thing at four years may do that same thing 
at seven when it ceases to be clever and be- 
comes a sign of lack of development; on the 
other hand the child who does the average 
thing at four may do the clever thing at seven, 
and this thing is a sign or indication of marked 
growth. In either case the thing done has 
significance and can be interpreted only when 
it is viewed as a process rather than as a 
product. 

Another time the division of the blocks into 
three parts may be accomplished in another 
way and put to a different use. Before the 



BUILDING GIFTS 95 

cube is taken apart, it may be decided to find 
three equal parts in a different way. Not by 
counting out the blocks one at a time and 
putting them in three separate piles, but, 
considering the cube as it stands when the box 
is first removed, by moving all of the blocks 
to the right of the center row of blocks (mak- 
ing one third of the gift) a little farther to the 
right, and all of those to the left of the center 
row a little farther to the left. If some of the 
children find that it is too difficult to remove 
the section without jarring out the small tri- 
angular prisms, they might be asked to remove 
these pieces first and then to separate the re- 
maining blocks into thirds and divide the tri- 
angular prisms equally among them. There 
can be an orderly handling of material with- 
out expecting too much, and when we realize 
that construction, the creative work of build- 
ing, is the main thing, we shall make every 
effort to simplify the steps that lead up to it and 
remove every difficulty that lies in the way. 

This naturally brings us to the considera- 
tion of each child's taking care of his own ma- 
terial and putting it away. Again, there is no 
necessity for having the children spend one 



96 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

fourth of the time given for work putting away 
material. If it is distinctly understood that 
putting away the blocks belongs to teacher and 
children together, there is no need for nerv- 
ousness on the part of either. The first time 
it is done, the teacher should allow ample 
time, the next time she can adjust it better. 
Every child might cover his box lid with 
cubes, and then add the rest that belong to 
him. After that he might begin to put on his 
triangular prisms, and this is the point at 
which the teacher's work begins. The first 
day or two, she will find it necessary to help 
nearly every child; but by and by, however, 
one child who has finished piling his own will 
be ready to help another. Now comes the dif- 
ficult part, putting the box upside down over 
all those piled-up blocks. This is the teacher's 
work, though the child who wishes to may 
try to put on his own box. At first there will 
be but one or two in the group who can suc- 
ceed; but day by day that number will in- 
crease, although the teacher must stand ready 
to put on the box for the child who is in- 
clined to grow nervous, even though the child 
thinks he can do it alone and says he does n't 



BUILDING GIFTS 97 

need to be helped. It is on account of just such 
cases as this that the work ought to be con- 
sidered as partly the child's and partly the 
teacher's. Otherwise, if it is considered the 
child's work and he is held responsible for it 
while the teacher actually does it for him, 
it is bad from the point of view of his moral 
growth. Children should learn to be self-re- 
liant, self-helpful, and there are numberless 
opportunities in the kindergarten to foster 
and develop this spirit; but we must use our 
judgment in selecting time and place for our 
emphasis upon this particular point. We 
should be sure, when insisting upon self-help- 
fulness, that the power is approximate to the 
task. Let us not expect too much in the begin- 
ning, but more and more as we move on from 
day to day, and bring about the desired gain 
in power through our presentation of ma- 
terial as well as through organization.^ 

One of the first things a small child in the 
nursery does with his blocks is to take one or 
two and push them across the floor, playing 

^ Instead of piling the blocks on the box lid, and then slip- 
ping the box down over them, the children might put the 
blocks in the box, one at a time, leaving the triangular prisms 
for the last row. 



98 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

train. It is the moving from one place to an- 
other that suggests the train, rather than that 
the form itself is like either engine or car. The 
older child will not be satisfied with this mere 
suggestion, but must have the arrangement 
of the blocks more nearly represent the object 
he has in mind. 

Two children will try to draw a picture of 
a policeman, and if you make a suggestion 
that these drawings be improved, the younger 
child will leave what he has drawn and add 
the star or club to make it more suggestive, 
without making it more like; while the older 
child will change a line here and there, really 
correcting what he has done, until the draw- 
ing looks more like a policeman. Or, if these 
two children are working with clay making 
boats and you suggest that perhaps they 
might be more like boats, the younger one will 
add oars or even a bit of clay for a man in the 
boat, while the older will change the bow, the 
keel, or the general shape of the boat until 
it is more like a real one. We as teachers 
should recognize these two different stages 
and lead the child step by step from the one 
to the other. 



BUILDING GIFTS 99 

The simple blocks of the third gift, as they 
are placed in a long row with one block on 
top of the end one and pushed back and forth 
across the table, made a very satisfactory 
train for the younger children, but cannot 
satisfy the older ones, who want a better 
smoke-stack, a cow-catcher, and a cab for the 
engineer. The fifth gift, however, with its 
slanting planes, enables them to work out 
their ideas much more satisfactorily, though 
in attempting to do so they will greatly need 
the guidance and direction of the teacher. 

At one time, I had the opportunity to visit 
a certain kindergarten three days in succes- 
sion, and watched the oldest group work with 
the fifth gift each day. The teacher gave them 
the blocks, and some child asked if they 
might make a train. She said yes and sat back 
in her chair with an air of being "out of it," 
and the children went to work. One boy made 
a fairly good engine, and, having evidently 
exhausted his ideas, left his unused blocks and 
went around the table to help another child 
with his engine. Some of the group worked 
very well, some played with each other or with 
what they had made; but the teacher had no 



100 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

part except to smile once in a while if by 
chance a child happened to look in her direc- 
tion. The following day the same material 
was brought out, and some child who had en- 
joyed his work the day before asked if he 
might make a train of cars. Again the an- 
swer was yes; again the teacher withdrew, and 
the children went on with their "free play." 
The time was spent by the children in merely 
repeating themselves; opportunity after op- 
portunity of lifting their activities to higher 
levels, of making them more conscious of 
what they were doing and how they were do- 
ing it, of helping them to take a step forward, 
was lost. The first day, one of the boys had 
begun to move his engine from one child's 
place to another, until he went all the way 
around the table. The second day, as soon 
as his engine was finished, he began to do the 
same thing. This would not have been so sur- 
prising had he belonged to the younger group 
instead of the older. Then on the third day, 
the same thing was repeated, but with no 
more meaning; the same forms were con- 
structed, but with no more skill and no more 
suggestiveness than upon the first day. Here 



BUILDING GIFTS 101 

there was no interaction between group and 
teacher, and the interaction among the chil- 
dren which one always finds in a small social 
group was of an undirected kind that leads 
nowhere. How were the children to know 
when the suggestion offered was a valuable 
one? How were they to know when their 
work of to-day was an improvement on their 
work of yesterday? Think of the wasted time 
of the children and the wasted opportunities 
of the teacher, who sat back because she was 
afraid of interfering! 

The question is not one of continuous non- 
interference, but of knowing just when inter- 
ference may be most helpful. In education 
there is a wholesome kind of interference that 
makes for real development. 

"I can't tell you," a member of a class once 
said to me, "how my idea of the teacher's 
place has changed in these last few weeks! I 
used to think she must keep herself wholly in 
the background until some one touched the 
button, as it were, and she appeared on the 
scene to straighten out a difficulty, and then 
withdrew. Now I see that her place is always 
with her children, guiding and directing their 



102 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

activities, sometimes silent and watcliful, to 
be sure, but only in order that her next act 
may be more intelligent." 

The different engines, made by the chil- 
dren when all are asked to make trains, will 
doubtless be good, bad, and indifferent. One 
child may have made a good cow-catcher, 
one a good smoke-stack, one a good cab, and 
one may have made good cars, but had no 
luck with his engine. The teacher will doubt- 
less see how she can improve the work of all 
as well as increase their power by her selection 
and emphasis. There may be enough sug- 
gested in this lesson to make two or three 
periods of work along this line valuable. 

One way of binding the group together by 
the working out of a common idea, as was 
previously done through a common activity, 
may be to ask each child to make the best 
high building he can; and in order that 
"high" may have a more definite meaning, 
she might add that the next time everybody 
will make the best low building he can. Both 
high and low will be familiar to the child from 
his earlier experimentation with this kind of 
material. The limitation "high" will nat- 



BUILDING GIFTS 103 

urally preclude the acceptance of any work 
that fails completely to meet this require- 
ment, although one construction will be high 
and another higher. As each child was made 
conscious of the fact that he could make a 
low building the next time, the child who does 
it this time will be asked to change his and do 
what the rest of the children are doing, but in 
his own way, and he may be reminded that the 
next time every one is going to make a low 
building. Though all are in reality engaged 
in making high buildings, yet each one is 
working out the problem in his own way. In 
the group many suggestions will arise that 
may modify the work, as they are seized upon 
by the teacher for their functional value. 
Perhaps one child who has profited by the 
various suggestions for improving his build- 
ing has finally achieved a structure that is 
quite worthy of furnishing a standard, for the 
time being, to raise the work of all the others 
to a higher level. If no child succeeds in fur- 
nishing such a standard, there is always the 
work of the teacher with her standards (de- 
termined by her knowledge of the material 
in its simplest suggestiveness and its widest 



104 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

social implication), helping to correct, clarify, 
enrich, enlarge, amplify, and reinforce the 
child's experience in such a way as to conserve 
his energy and make each step count in his 
all-around development. 

It is needless to suggest in detail the num- 
berless things children can do with this ma- 
terial in interpreting the world about them 
and testing their own powet, and the various 
ways in which the teacher can guide their ac- 
tivities. The main point is to understand the 
principle which lies back of all that she does, 
and to apply it both in the selection of re- 
sponses made and the organization of these 
responses in the group with which she works. 

Various problems dealing with size, num- 
ber, form, etc., may be worked out with this 
gift as well as with the third and fourth, al- 
though it is far less simple on account of the 
diagonal division of the cube. 

Symmetrical forms or forms of beauty may 
also be developed, although this gift so stimu- 
lates building that any mere placing or ar- 
rangement of material that could be built up 
does not make a very strong appeal to the 
child. There is other gift material to be dis- 



BUILDING GIFTS 105 

cussed later which will give opportunity for 
this kind of work — so stimulative of interest 
by its very nature. It must be left to the 
teacher to decide where the emphasis should 
be placed in the use of each gift, and this will 
in turn depend upon her wide knowledge of 
all the gifts, of the interests and needs of her 
children, and upon her own sense of values. , 

The Sixth Gift 

The sixth gift is a cube divided into twenty- 
seven oblong prisms, three of which are sub- 
divided into long square prisms, and six of 
which are subdivided into short square prisms. 

This, the last of the building gifts, is per- 
haps also the most fascinating on account of 
the numberless delightful arrangements and 
combinations which it suggests. 

It will be interesting to the children to find 
and take off a new kind of block, and then to 
find all of that kind and put them on the same 
part of the table. Though all are doing the 
same thing, yet two kinds of blocks will be dis- 
covered in each group, and each child should 
have an opportunity in some way of handling 
both. Here again are endless opportunities 



106 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

for every child to express himself, and for the 
group to work together. Through the placing 
of some limit in the handling of a larger 
amount of material, the teacher can help the 
children more quickly to gain that greater 
power of control which has been gradually 
growing through the use of the other gifts. 
One valuable and suggestive limitation is the 
combining of one old and one new block. 

Consider for a moment what possibilities 
there are here. The old must be the same to 
all, the brick or oblong prism; the new may be 
either the long or the short square prism. The 
teacher will of course know the possible com- 
binations of both, and the suggestions they 
offer for future work.' This knowledge will 
enable her first to select the new form to be 
used and then to determine the limit she 
should place in its use. Each child might make 
some one combination of the two, say the old 
form and the short square prism. There will 
be enough variety here to make one see the 
value of having each one discover for himself 
various possible relations or combinations. 
Each might take two more of the same kind 
and put them together some other way, and 



BUILDING GIFTS 107 

two more as many times as he can find ways 
of putting them together. Although the child 
is merely handling his material, experiment- 
ing with it in different ways under the guidance 
of his teacher, and not working for any par- 
ticular product, still he is working consciously 
and is surely obliged to think for himself in 
order to make a still different combination. 

When a wise relationship is constantly main- 
tained between child and teacher there will 
be no mere accident or chance in this kind 
of work, but a more and more intelligent re- 
sponse day by day to the material. Were the 
child told just what to do from the beginning 
there would not be the same development of 
freedom and power; were he left entirely to 
himself for what is called "free play," there 
would not be the same intelligence and growth 
in his activity. There is necessity, therefore, 
for an interaction that shall be an actual proc- 
ess in the work done, — an interaction ex- 
pressing itself not merely in words and theory, 
but in a regulated freedom that encourages 
initiative at the same time that it imposes 
judicious and helpful guidance.^ However, 

1 Some of the possible combinations asked for may be seen 
in Figs. 50-60. 



108 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

the inquiring teacher will have far more satis- 
faction if she will do her own experimenting 
with the same material suggested here. 

Let us select, for example, the last combina- 
tion to be the one which unifies, limits, and 
hence frees the work of the individuals in the 
group. Each child is to make as many such 
combinations as his blocks will allow, put 
them together some way and use the remain- 
ing blocks to carry out and amplify whatever 
idea this particular arrangement suggests. 

The teacher might select any one of these 
arrangements and use the rest of the blocks 
to work out more satisfactorily whatever 
suggestion is appropriate, as of house, street 
car, benches in the park, fort, and so on. 
Whatever idea emerges through this play will 
belong to the individual and may be more 
completely worked out by him, each one work- 
ing out whatever his arrangement suggests; 
or it may have been suggested by the experi- 
mentation of several; or it may be selected by 
the teacher simply because it seems to be the 
most satisfactory idea for the group to work 
out. 
The work may be carried on in any one of 



BUILDING GIFTS 109 

these ways, but again for the purpose of illus- 
tration let us choose the last. Let us sup- 
pose that the last arrangement has suggested 
a fort to some child who has lived at a mili- 
tary post.^ If this seems a wise selection to the 
teacher, then the idea of a fort, its form and 
its use, must be made clearer to all the chil- 
dren. Some child in the group will have some 
contribution to make in the organization of 
this idea. A gun will surely be suggested. 
Where could we put it.^^ And what have we 
left over that we could put in these openings .^^ 
How many have we, and how many openings? 
' There are six long square prisms and twelve 
short square prisms on which they could rest. 
What shall we do? Through experimentation, 
some one will discover that one long block 
can be placed on every other short one. What 
have we left to use now? Six bricks or oblong 
prisms. Different children will relate them in 
different ways to the blocks as they now stand, 
the teacher pointing out good arrangements 

1 A fort to-day must have undesirable associations, and so 
should be eliminated from the general work of the children and 
not emphasized even when accepted as a product of the indi- 
vidual. The same is true of all soldier songs, games, marches, 
etc., although this need in no way interfere with flag songs and 
marches. 



no USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

and suggesting how poor ones may be changed 
to make them better. With twenty children 
in the group there may be twenty forts vary- 
ing shghtly. Out of these twenty there may 
be three or four equally good, and the chil- 
dren may choose which one of these three or 
four they will all make. In such cases it 
might be a good idea to have those four good 
ones placed at the back of the table where 
they will remain, and each of those children 
given another box of blocks that he may work 
with the rest in reproducing the chosen form. 
If time permits, a second form may be chosen 
and made by all; but if time does not permit 
and the interest in building forts is still keen, 
the remaining ones from which to choose may 
be put on a shelf, then rebuilt by the teacher 
just before using the gift the next time, or, to 
save time, as each form is removed from the 
table it may be placed on a clay board or very 
stiff piece of cardboard, to be kept ready for 
use without having to be rebuilt. 

One simple fort may be made. (See Figs. 
61, 62.) 

New forms may be developed either through 
new ideas related to and suggested by this 



BUILDING GIFTS 111 

one, or through a new idea suggested by the 
arrangement of the blocks but unrelated to 
the idea of the fort. Suppose we choose the 
latter. The long square prisms or guns will 
very likely be moved back and forth by the 
children in their play, and even up and down 
by touching one end. This movement very 
easily suggests keys on piano or organ; con- 
sequently an opportunity may well be given 
to work out this idea. Some one may suggest 
that one long square prism be put in each 
opening, which will reduce the openings to six 
instead of eleven as there are only six blocks of 
this kind. Up to this point the children will 
have used their blocks in the same way, but 
the use of those remaining to make either the 
piano or the organ will give opportunity for 
individual variation.^ In Madame Kraus- 
Boelte's Kindergarten Guide may be found a 
very good organ worked out on this basis. It 
will be interesting to note in how many dif- 
ferent ways these extra blocks may be used 
while the children are trying to work out their 
ideas of a piano or an organ. Naturally there 

^ It will readily be seen that this suggestion will mean far 
more to a reader who has her material at hand and works 
it out as we go along. 



112 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

will be the child who merely adds the blocks 
because they are there to be used, and the 
child who tries them first one way and then 
another, as well as the child who seems to 
know just what he wants to do and sets to 
work to do it. The aim of the teacher is to get 
each child to know and then to set to work to 
do, although she realizes this is a later step in 
the process and patiently works to bring it 
about gradually. In the work of all there will 
be suggestions for the improvement of each 
one's work and the teacher will help the chil- 
dren to find and utilize these suggestions. 

Instead of working out the idea of an organ 
from the fort, which suggested it, the long 
square prisms might be removed and the re- 
maining blocks changed in their relation to 
each other, though keeping the original unit. 
For example, half the units might be placed in 
front of the other half (see Fig. 63) and the 
other blocks added to make it more like what 
it suggests to each individual; or any slight 
change might be made in this part as well, if 
by so doing the idea can be better expressed. 
Take, for example, the idea of a street car and 
work it out with very little change in this 



BUILDING GIFTS 113 

basic part, and then with a more elaborate 
change just to show the possibilities of the 
material and what it suggests to the less ma- 
ture and to the more mature person. With 
little change and adding the other blocks in a 
very simple way, there would result a street 
car that can be easily moved from one part 
of the table to another (see Fig. 64); or an- 
other variation (see Fig. 65). This form has 
larger windows and a more suggestive roof 
and entrance and will give more satisfaction 
to the growing child because of its closer 
resemblance to a street car. 

Combining these units suggests other 
forms (see Figs. 66, 67). Make as many as 
possible and then combine them in various 
ways, working out suggestions that come 
while making these combinations. 

Units need not be limited to two blocks, 
although that is the simplest in the beginning. 
We might take two bricks and three short 
square prisms and have them put together in 
as many interesting ways as possible; from 
these we might select any one that would 
lead to a different type of work and develop 
new possibilities in the use of the gift. 



114 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

Take, for example, this combination of two 
oblong prisms and three short square prisms 
(see Fig. 68). Four of these units can be 
made. They can then be arranged in several 
dijfferent ways, touching or joined by the 
extra blocks, or placed one on top of the 
other, the open spaces suggesting windows, 
or doors. Most interesting and satisfactory 
houses may be worked out from these sugges- 
tions. 

After making these four units it may be 
interesting to use the remaining blocks to 
make a form to be used as a center to which 
these parts may be related in different ways. 
One child may place two imits on each side 
of the center end to end; another may unite 
two units in a different way and place them 
on each side, or both on one side; still another 
may place two at the back and two at the 
sides, or two on the table and the other two 
on top of them. It will be surprising to see 
what wonderful opportunities for individual 
variation there will be in working this out in 
a group of twenty. There will also be most 
interesting variation as among succeeding 
groups from year to year. One year the chil- 



BUILDING GIFTS 115 

dren will make certain discoveries leading to 
inventions along quite different lines from 
those discovered and followed up the year 
before, and therein lies one of the joys of 
teaching. 

With three oblong prisms and three short 
square prisms make a new unit or as many 
new ones as your material will allow. From 
these a suggestive one may be chosen and 
repeated as many times as possible. (See 
Fig. 69.) To one child the unit may suggest 
a car. Can you make it look more like a car? 
Other blocks may be added and the unit thus 
changed; for the child has now so much bet- 
ter control of both his ideas and his material, 
that, when he finds himseH limited by the 
unit which has served its purpose in freeing 
his power, he may work entirely away from it 
without being conscious of doing so. 

Four rather suggestive cars will surely de- 
mand of some child the making of an engine. 
Perhaps the unused material remaining will 
not be sufficient to make a satisfactory one. 
The teacher, realizing the possibilities offered 
by a larger amount, may suggest that a bet- 
ter engine could be made if the children would 



116 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

shorten the train and use the blocks that 
made up one of the cars. Some child may pre- 
fer making but one car to go with his engine, 
and use the remainder of his blocks to make 
a station. This in turn may stimulate a lively 
interest in stations, especially after the inter- 
est in trains has been active and has brought 
forth some good results, and all the blocks, 
regardless of units, may be used on the new 
enterprise. Bealizing the possibilities and the 
joy of discovery, the teacher will so guide, 
direct, and organize the work of the group, 
that the child's experimentation will be a more 
and more purposeful manipulation of ma- 
terial culminating in the expression of an 
idea. 

So far we have constructed our unit with 
the oblong prisms and short square prisms, as 
they are less difficult to handle and in a way 
prepare the child for the more beautiful con- 
struction that is possible with the long square 
prisms when they are used as pillars. 

After a certain amount of skill has been 
gained in the handling of this gift, the teacher 
can stimulate its most aesthetic use by limit- 
ing the blocks to be used in such a way as to 



BUILDING GIFTS 117 

get the pillar as a response. Have each child 
put together two short square prisms and one 
long one. This may have been done in the 
earlier experimentations, but the combina- 
tion has not been especially noted or empha- 
sized by the teacher's selection, as it required 
more skill in handling than the children had 
at the time. Several results may follow. (See 
Figs. 70-72.) We choose the last form shown 
in Fig. 72. 

Six of these units may be made and related 
to each other in various ways without tak- 
ing apart the rest of the blocks, or they 
may be related in various ways to the blocks 
as they now stand. Three pillars placed in 
front of these blocks and three at the back 
touching give a very good effect of a Greek 
temple; or two may be placed in the middle of 
the front and two at each side, giving also a 
very good effect. The oblong prisms may be 
divided into three piles as they stand, and 
two pillars may be related in the same way to 
each of the three; then these thirds may be 
changed in their relationship to each other. 
It is strange how succeeding classes when they 
are given the same limitations in their ex- 



118 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

periments with this material, will do similar 
things year after year, and yet each class will 
have the joyous feeling of original discovery 
and invention. One member of the class — 
adult or child — will suggest one arrange- 
ment, another will suggest another, some one 
else a slight change, until every one has 
shared in the experience of the group and en- 
riched his own thereby. 

Having once discovered the use of the pillar, 
each individual will have numberless oppor- 
tunities for working it out more fully. Porches, 
pergolas, monuments, triumphal arches, and 
various other types of architecture may be 
developed, not all by every child, but each 
will develop some one at least which may then 
perhaps be reproduced by all or used as a 
suggestive basis for the work of the group. 
When a number of interesting units have been 
made by various children, the teacher, in- 
stead of choosing some one which all are to 
use, may let each child use the most interest- 
ing or suggestive one he himself has made, or 
choose one which has been made by some 
other member of the group and work from 
that. 



BUILDING GIFTS 119 

Often two units can be most happily com- 
bined; perhaps the combination may be re- 
peated and varied, suggesting different Hnes 
of work for future hours, and showing many 
possibiHties that the child would never have 
appreciated without some such experimental 
work. 

Naturally, after the first mere handling of 
blocks in the early use of the building gifts, 
no child is ever going to handle his material 
aimlessly again. He will sometimes start with 
a mere purpose of arranging blocks in different 
ways to see "what- will-happen," and some- 
times with a very definite idea of what he 
wants to happen. This very definite idea, 
however, undergoes many changes as through 
his arranging of blocks he discovers new and 
wonderful possibilities as well as limitations 
in the material, of which he would have been 
unconscious without this experimentation 
with a limited number. 

The inspiration and suggestion of **what- 
will-happen" during the early play with 
building blocks is to the little architect what 
the more or less accidental mixture of paints 
on the palette is to the artist. Of course the 



120 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

artist knows the color he wants, but no one 
can tell him just how to get it or just how 
much of another tone or hue to add to get the 
effect demanded by his aesthetic sense, and 
the "little more" of some one color changes 
the nature and value of the final product, the 
finished picture. 

You have a friend who has built a new 
house and asks you to plan the decorations 
for one room. You are rich in ideas, having 
lived in and enjoyed beautifully and artis- 
tically decorated rooms all your life; but just 
because of your many ideas, you are rather 
bewildered and find it no easy matter to de- 
cide. A few days later your friend writes you 
that the tiles about the fireplace have just 
been put in, or the wood- work is now finished, 
or that she has just fallen heir to a wonderful 
rug which fits your room perfectly: at once 
your bewildered feeling passes, as you start 
on your first journey to the new house. You 
know that with mantel and tiles, or wood- 
work, or rug, as a basis marking a limitation 
suggestive in itself, you will be freer to carry 
out some delightful scheme of color or design 
than if left with a wider range of choice; and 



BUILDING GIFTS 121 

yet the work will be truly your own in the 
end, though you have received the key-note 
from another. With larger experience in room 
or house decoration, you will be able to choose 
the key-note as well, but that will come after 
you have gained power from the experience 
of working freely to produce harmony with a 
key-note supplied from without. 

Frequently each child with his box of 
blocks before him will go to work in his own 
way to build house, bridge, tunnel, cars, furni- 
ture, or what not, and many interesting things 
will be done. Some few, however, will wander 
far from the original purpose, and in order that 
they may have the kind of success which 
will encourage future effort, the teacher must 
see to it that she has a place in this experi- 
ence. 

That place may be to find the key-note 
in what has already been done, or to supply 
it herself or suggest it through the limitation 
she places in the choice and use of material. 
While the child's ideas remain vague and his 
power is less developed, the limits may be 
definitely placed; but as better control is at- 
tained, the teacher will suggest two or more 



122 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

limits, two or more possible combinations, 
and let the child take his choice. 

It is interesting and fascinating to watch 
the development of a group of children under 
the wise guidance of a teacher who sees every 
experience as a step in a long process of edu- 
cation instead of as a lesson to be given. There 
is a constant but gradual movement from 
mere vague and meaningless activity, mere 
handling and arranging of material, to the 
most conscious and purposeful activity, re- 
quiring application of all the skill in doing and 
thinking of which the child is capable in in- 
creasing degree from day to day. 

The very nature of the material of the sixth 
gift suggests a more open type of construc- 
tion than did the fifth gift; windows, door- 
ways, towers, cars, and tunnels are some of 
the forms which will appear in the experi- 
mental work of the group. 

It will not be long before the children them- 
selves will suggest the limitations which shall 
be the bases of their experiments. Sometimes 
these will be well worth working with be- 
cause through this work will come clearer 
ideas and greater skill of hand, and some- 



BUILDING GIFTS 123 

times they will be eliminated because they 
are not valuable stimuli for creating greater 
power in both thought and action. 

If one realizes that a limit placed in either 
the number or the kind of blocks used is 
merely a means of helping the child win his 
own freedom and not an end in itself, then 
one will be free to use or not to use such 
limits as circumstances demand, and will 
realize that many valuable building experi- 
ences may start on this basis, while many may 
start without it and end with it, and many 
into which the placing of a limit does not 
enter at all may be of greatest value. 

What the teacher needs is greater insight 
into the processes of growth on the part of her 
children, greater skill in the manipulation of 
her materials, the ability to recognize the 
need of help on the part of individual chil- 
dren, and the ability to give such help and 
encouragement whenever needed, the knowl- 
edge that will make her interference valuable, 
and the wisdom which will enable her to 
stand back and observe when the time is 
right for such action. 

Interesting and valuable number experi- 



124 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

ences may be had while building with these 
blocks, the teacher setting the problems for 
the children, and the children setting them 
for each other and for themselves. The 
length of a sidewalk may be limited, the 
height and length of a wall, the width and 
length of a platform or wharf, the inside or 
outside measurements of a box; such things 
will test the growing power of the child and 
afford him immeasurable delight. 

Symmetrical forms may be made by work- 
ing from a three or six-sided center, instead of 
a four-sided one, as with the other building- 
blocks. But here again I would suggest that 
such work be left for the flat materials which 
are to follow, unless some child discovers for 
himself the possibilities of such arrangement 
and delights to work it out. In this case, a few 
such experiences will be valuable as an in- 
troduction to what may be better done with 
other material and will therefore have em- 
phasis later on. 

As the child's ideas of things are growing 
clearer through his play and work with this 
gift, he will find those ideas demanding more 



BUILDING GIFTS 125 

material for their satisfactory expression. 
Sometimes he satisfies this demand by using 
two boxes of blocks of the same kind, some- 
times by merely taking a few blocks from the 
second box to complete in a more satisfactory 
way the form begun with the first box. And 
here is the teacher's opportunity to stimulate 
clearer thinking, finer discrimination, greater 
skill, and more satisfactory results by giving 
each child both the fifth and sixth gifts. 

The intelligent work that has been done 
with each preceding gift will make this new 
experimentation deeply interesting to both 
teacher and children. As with every other 
material, some will go to work in one way and 
some in another, and the teacher will make 
mental notes of these various ways, as it is 
through just such observations that she 
learns to know her individual children. One 
child will begin to build something w^ith one 
set of blocks and will then add to it some of 
the blocks from the other set; one will build 
one thing with one set and a different thing 
with the other; one will take the blocks from 
both boxes, pick up first one and then an- 
other, and in a confused state of mind really 



126 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

do nothing; another will experiment with 
small groups of blocks, making various units 
and arranging them in various ways until 
they begin to suggest something to him and 
he works more consciously towards this end. 

The watchful teacher will soon discover 
where help is needed and why. She will see 
that too much material is confusing and dis- 
couraging to the little child whose mental 
processes of organization are not yet under 
his control. Here she sees the value of start- 
ing out with a limited amount of material and 
a definite idea. With a smaller amount of 
material the limit was placed through mak- 
ing definite units and repeating them, the sug- 
gestion of many possibilities coming through 
various arrangements of these units. Now, 
however, with much more material, this will 
not be either the most interesting or the most 
valuable way; we as teachers must again 
study two things — the children and the 
material. 

We shall doubtless find now that an older 
child will work more freely and easily toward 
a definite end, if he starts with a more def- 
inite beginning. Suppose his definite end or 



BUILDING GIFTS 127 

purpose is to build a house, as this is perhaps 
the most suggestive use of all building-blocks : 
give a limited number of cubes from the fifth 
gift as a foundation, the same number and 
even the same arrangement for all children in 
the group, and let each child use all the re- 
maining blocks, or any of them that he may 
choose. Very few children will attempt to use 
them all; many will be quite satisfied with 
using only a small part of those that are left; 
but even so there will be a greater opportunity 
for choice than there was when the limitation 
confined them to the blocks of one set or an- 
other. 

Before this the children have discovered 
that different shaped blocks have different 
characteristic uses, and now they can really 
apply the knowledge gained through former 
play. The triangular prisms made good roofs 
before. Why not use them for this purpose 
now.^ The long square prisms made good 
pillars or roof-supports before. Why not try 
them for that purpose now.^ So each child 
learns to discriminate, to choose the form 
most suitable for the use, and acquires a 
greater appreciation of the relation between 



128 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

form and content, between expression and the 
idea to be expressed, and the construction of 
any form becomes a conscious, intelligent 
process controlled by the child under the 
guidance of the teacher. 

There are so many ways suggested of using 
these two gifts together when one once takes 
the blocks out of the boxes, that many eve- 
nings may be well spent by an older person in 
fascinating experimentation. A house may 
be built with the fifth gift while the sixth may 
be used for a wall around it. The children 
will soon choose the blocks which will make 
the best foundation, those which will make 
the best windows, porches, roofs, and so on. 
The dwelling-house is usually the most pop- 
ular; it may be a low one-storied affair, or may 
have several stories. Most of the material 
may be used for the house and the remainder 
for the garage or barn. A whole farm may 
be suggested, or one big city house. Stores, 
car barns, railroad stations, greenhouses, 
churches, libraries will be suggested by dif- 
ferent children and attempted with great in- 
terest and confidence. Toward the end of his 
last year of kindergarten, when the child is 



BUILDING GIFTS 129 

capable of using this amount of material, he 
should appreciate the characteristic features 
of the building he chooses to make, and see 
that these features are included in his gen- 
eral plan. Stores are places in which one 
displays goods which are for sale; car barns 
must have openings large enough to ad- 
mit the cars; railroad stations must shelter 
those who are awaiting trains; greenhouses 
must have slanting roofs of glass that will 
admit the light from both east and west; 
churches will have spires suggesting the spir- 
itual uplift which comes from communion in 
the house of God; libraries should be beautiful 
and worthy of holding much that is precious 
to man and also generously inviting to the 
public to whom this precious store is offered. 

Sometimes every child in the group will be 
working out his idea of the same kind of 
building, and here will surely arise sugges- 
tions which will help to make more satisfac- 
tory the work of ' all, provided the teacher 
understands her relation and therefore her 
responsibility to her group. 

Cooperative work cannot but grow out of 
a common interest, if the interest is large 



130 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

enough. The various buildings attempted will 
have some relation to each other arising from 
the thought of the city or town in which they 
are to be built. This idea of city, town, or 
community will influence the activity of the 
group, and may indeed become the central 
or organizing principle which determines the 
work of the various individuals. One child 
will know more about and be more interested 
in one kind of construction than another will; 
hence the work will be naturally divided ac- 
cording to knowledge and interest, and the 
town will grow through the combined efforts 
of all. The next day or a later day another 
period may be profitably spent in working on 
the same principle, but this time each child 
will choose a different building as his part. 
Another variation may be enjoyed by build- 
ing on the floor instead of on the tables; the 
buildings are now farther apart, and perhaps 
two or three children work together at each 
one, while others make the railroad tracks 
running through the town, or the train of cars 
that belongs to every growing community and 
is a source of delight to every small boy.^ 

^ Figs. 73 to 80 show diflFerent types of work that can be done 



BUILDING GIFTS 131 

To a little child what magic there is in a 
box of blocks ! How much more than the mere 
wooden forms which he handles! How the 
imagination lives and grows in such company, 
and how its opportunity for growth is in- 
creased as the child gains power in the use of 
his material as a means of expressing his inner 
life! The teacher should realize that in the 
mind of the child who is building there are, 
besides the dreams that she knows about, 
some that perhaps are never told. But some- 
times it is our good fortune to hear the child 
express these dreams in words and to learn 
from his lips of these Castles in Spain. Al- 
ways in any case the building is connected 
with the child's own experience; always it is 
colored with the thread of his own very per- 
sonal life which runs through it. 

Sometimes in the building of any one form, 
one child will do more satisfactory or more 
suggestive work than another, while another 
child will grow discouraged over the failure 

with the fifth and sixth gifts together, using all the blocks in 
each one or in each group. These are not intended to be given 
to the children, but are placed here merely for the purpose of 
stimulating a greater interest in the material on the part of the 
teacher, that she in turn may more intelligently guide the chil- 
dren in their own activities and experimentations. 



132 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

of his own efforts. Here the teacher may help 
to encourage all by giving them the same foun- 
dation on which to build; for this purpose she 
will choose one that she knows will give satis- 
faction, while yet it allows of sufficient varia- 
tion in the finished structure to give each in- 
dividual a chance to feel that the result is his 
own. If some one result is particularly good, 
it will be valuable to have each one have the 
satisfaction of making it; or if none is valu- 
able enough to be repeated, then the teacher 
herself may give one that all can make, and 
that will raise the standard of each one's work 
through a deepening and quickening sense 
of appreciation. 

Appreciation has much more to do with 
education than our "Course of Study" or 
** Methods of Work" would indicate. Ap- 
preciation enriches life and lays the best pos- 
sible foundation for truly constructive or 
creative work. But it must not stand alone; 
it must always be true and sincere enough to 
effect the self immediately in action. There is 
this constant interaction between apprecia- 
tion and control, and it is through apprecia- 
tion that man gets greater power of control. 



BUILDING GIFTS 133 

"To enjoy" does not belong to man's leisure 
moments alone, nor to the arts alone, but to all 
life. The artisan who appreciates good work 
and enjoys his own is becoming the artist; the 
man who appreciates the good and beautiful 
in all life and whose own deeds are affected by 
this appreciation is truly living; the man who 
day by day feels more deeply, sees more 
clearly, and acts more wisely, is the man who 
is truly being educated. 

If such a thought of education can truly 
grip the teacher, it will give joy and life to all 
of her teaching, no matter what her subject- 
matter, for no lesson will be an end in itself, 
no subject-matter will be an end in itself, but 
each and every lesson and each and every sub- 
ject-matter will be but a means of giving 
more abundant life to every child under her 
care, and that in turn will increase her own 
joy in life, deepen her own insight, and give 
greater value and influence to her every act. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE FLAT MATERIALS — SEVENTH TO 
TWELFTH GIFTS 

Was there ever a little child who did not 
like to gather up and put in piles the things he 
liked to play with? Have you watched him at 
the beach, on the farm, in his own back yard, 
or even on the city pavement? The things he 
gathers together and puts in piles will differ 
according to the locality in which you have 
observed him, but the spirit, the principle 
will be the same in all places. Now it is a 
pocketful of pebbles, a pile of shells, a basket 
of chips, an apron full of leaves or twigs, seeds 
of various kinds, bits of broken china or glass, 
odds and ends of string, corks, buttons, poker- 
chips and what not. 

At first his only desire or interest seems 
to be to possess, to collect, to put together and 
keep together. Later, however, he examines 
these treasures, spreads them out to feast his 
eyes upon, until they begin to assimie new 
aspects and to take on a new interest. He 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 135 

puts some of them on one side and some on 
the other, some of them close together and 
some of them far apart. He arranges some of 
them in rows without any apparent reason, 
and some in hollow figures. 

He takes the larger twigs or bigger stones 
or shells and makes a room in which he plays 
he lives, then he finds it necessary to leave an 
open space for a door where he may pass out, 
perhaps into another room, and so his house 
grows, especially if several children are play- 
ing together. 

Did you ever have the good fortune to live 
in a big yard where the grass was cut and al- 
lowed to lie for hours before it was raked up, 
and have you with your own hands raked it 
into rows that shaped themselves into the 
walls of a house. f^ Did you ever do this same 
thing with the brown and red and gold leaves 
of the autumn, or with chips of wood near an 
old-fashioned wood-pile, or with corn-cobs 
from the near-by bin? 

This seems to be a universal interest of 
childhood and finds expression in one form 
here and in another there. Children collect 
things, group things, and sort things for the 



136 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

mere joy the activity gives them. While the 
child at the seashore can collect shells and 
pebbles, the child in the country, twigs, leaves, 
and seeds, — the child in the city may be lim- 
ited to buttons and spools; but everywhere 
there is this desire to collect, sort, and group 
like objects, and to play with them. This play 
at first means scarcely more than handling; 
then it becomes arranging; and finally grows 
into an arranging to represent something. 

Froebel recognized this impulse as univer- 
sal and rejoiced for the children who had the 
opportimity of giving expression to it through 
interesting materials of the outside world. 
But the need of the child who has not this 
opportunity should be met, and so materials 
were chosen or invented which would satisfy 
this desire and have a general educational 
value at the same time. 

There must be the limited and the unlimited 
number of things just alike; there must be 
with these like things other things unlike; 
they must be simple and durable without 
being too suggestive; they must allow room 
for the play of the imagination; they must 
allow variation in arrangement; they must 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 137 

emphasize and make clearer all the ideas the 
child expresses through the various natural 
materials with which he plays in different 
places. Some of these must stimulate han- 
dling piece by piece, and others must stimu- 
late handling in the mass, in order to satisfy 
both interests of the child. The educational 
playthings devised to meet these various needs 
are the last six gifts. 

Because of the simple and rather unsugges- 
tive planes and lines of these last six gifts, 
they lend themselves more readily to the 
child's changing imagination; moreover, be- 
cause of their simple lines, the natural rhyth- 
mic arrangement of such materials which little 
children will make gives a sense of satisfaction 
and pleasure that could not be obtained with 
less regular and simple forms. 

There are various ways in which these gifts 
may be presented to the children : all at one 
time, with a limited number of parts of each; 
or part at one time, with an unlimited num- 
ber of parts of each; or part at one time, with 
a limited number of parts of each; or one gift 
at a time, with either an unlimited or a limited 
number of parts. 



138 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

In the previous six gifts, not only were the 
forms of the parts Hmited, but the number of 
parts also; here we have the forms of the parts 
limited, but the number of parts to be used is 
unlimited and left to the choice of the chil- 
dren and the teacher. 

Naturally one's method of presentation of 
any material depends upon one's final pur- 
pose. If we wish to have the children do with 
this material some definite thing which we 
have in mind, then there is no need to discuss 
the various presentations, for the matter is 
most easily decided; but if we wish to get, 
from the child's first play with any material, 
suggestions for development of power through 
the future use of that material, then we must 
present it in such a way as to stimulate his 
natural activities along that line, and must 
then direct those activities from day to day, 
thereby conserving and developing power. 

A large number of tablets of different 
shapes, gonographs, slats, sticks, rings of dif- 
ferent sizes with their halves and quarters, 
and of seeds might be put in several baskets 
or boxes, and then each basket or box might 
be given to small groups of children to ex- 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 139 

amine and sort. It would be interesting to 
note the sorting and the different bases of dis- 
crimination and classification. In one group 
perhaps all the smooth shiny tablets regard- 
less of varying shapes might be put in one 
pile, or all the sticks regardless of different 
lengths, or all the bright steel rings regardless 
of whole or part. In another group some child 
of a far more discriminating turn of mind may 
separate the variously shaped tablets, sticks 
according to their various lengths, or the 
whole, haK, and quarter rings; another child 
may divide his tablets into piles according to 
light and dark wood, instead of according to 
the various shapes. 

Out of the sorting may come a valuable 
suggestion of arrangement of material, as one 
form is placed by the side of another instead 
of in an indefinite pile. The observant teacher 
will note many happy suggestions for her 
future work. 

Instead of putting every part of these last 
six gifts in each box or basket or tray, some 
parts might be omitted and other things put 
in their places. In such a collection might be 
circular and square tablets, light and dark, 



140 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

sticks of two different lengths, rings of the 
three different sizes, shells, and seeds. These 
again might be given to small groups of chil- 
dren, the observant teacher being a member 
of each group. 

Another suggestion is to limit still further 
the kind and number of forms in each tray, 
giving each child one tray to himself. Here 
there might be four circular tablets of one 
shade and four square tablets of the other, 
four sticks of any one length, four of the larg- 
est rings, and four of the smallest, four shells, 
and four big pumpkin or squash seeds. Let 
each child find something in his tray and hold 
it up that all may see what he has found, and 
then put it down on the table, and see if he 
can find another just like it, then as many 
more of the same kind as he can find in his 
tray. The teacher may note mentally how 
these have been arranged, or how they have 
been laid down on the table with no sense of 
arrangement : the mere activity of finding one 
kind of thing among many will have satisfied 
some children, and there may indeed be no 
necessity as yet for any emphasis upon ar- 
rangement. 



THE FLAT MATERLVLS 141 

After the four of a kind have been taken out 
of the tray, it may be suggested that each child 
find a different thing and hold it up, then 
take out all of that kind and so on, until all 
are taken from the tray. By this time there 
will be many arrangements which will suggest 
future work with one or all of these materials. 
In some cases each of these materials will have 
been taken out and placed in rows not bear- 
ing any relation to each other; in other cases 
a row of one kind will be placed in front of a 
row of another kind accidentally touching 
and giving such a pleasing effect that one 
child becomes more interested in that arrange- 
ment and the possibilities of changing it than 
in taking the other material out of the box. 
The direction of this activity must be left to 
the teacher's judgment. If the child is one 
who has made few discoveries, and has shown 
little initiative, one who has no confidence in 
his own ability to create, then it is a thousand 
times better for him to go on working out his 
own idea, which is absorbing him, than it 
would be to go back and continue doing in a 
mechanical way that which has been asked 
of the other children. If the teacher really 



142 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS , 

understands her children, she will often seize 
upon such a valuable experience when it falls 
to the individual child, as a point of depar- 
ture for work with all the children during the 
rest of her lesson or work-period. She will not 
impose the particular thing done by one child 
upon all the childre,n, but will utilize the sug- 
gestion in one child's work to the advantage 
of all the members of the group. 

Suppose this same child is one who always 
demands attention and does something the 
others are not doing just to be. noticed, just 
to be different, and not because he has made 
some discovery which has led his mind en- 
tirely away from the thing he started to do. 
Here the understanding teacher may either 
pay no attention to his diversion and put her 
emphasis and commendation upon the work 
of the children who are doing what she asked 
to have done; or she may note the child's 
work and say to him that some day he may 
work out that idea, and perhaps all the chil- 
dren may, but that now she would like to 
have him take the different things out of his 
box as the other children are doing, arranging 
them, however, in any way that he likes. The 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 143 

manner in which the teacher meets a situa- 
tion determines in a large measure whether 
it will aid or hinder the best development of 
the child; and no one is so quick to feel and 
respond to this manner of the adult as is the 
little child. 

The Seventh Gift 

The seventh gift consists of various-shaped 
tablets made of hard wood, highly polished in 
light and dark tones of color. They are circles, 
squares, right isosceles, right scalene, equi- 
lateral, and obtuse isosceles triangles- The 
number belonging to the Gift is not deter- 
mined as it is in the case of each of the build- 
ing gifts. 

Geometric forms are not chosen to teach 
the child geometry, although he may learn 
much from them, any more than ten fingers 
are given him to teach him arithmetic, al- 
though he may do much counting with them. 
These geometric forms are in fact the sim- 
plest of all forms, and because of their sim- 
plicity lend themselves to most delightful 
combinations and allow of much creative 
work suggested by these combinations. Being 



144 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

made in both light and dark wood enhances 
their aesthetic value when they are placed 
side by side, and gives increased opportunity 
for variation. 

The manner of presenting this material de- 
pends, as was the case with preceding ma- 
terials, upon the interest of the teacher and 
the insight she has into the interests of her 
children. All the experimental or prescribed 
work that she may have had with any ma- 
terials will be of value to her, provided it 
merely helps her to see the possibilities of 
these same materials in the hands of her chil- 
dren, and helps her to see these possibilities 
from the point of view of those natural inter- 
ests and activities through the direction of 
which the children are to gain power. If the 
prescribed work she may have had becomes 
the thing evolved through group interaction 
and not the thing merely imposed, then in- 
deed is it valuable. If the mere experimen- 
tation or rather vague ''free play" which she 
may have had in her training helps her to ap- 
preciate more fully the experimental work of 
little children, then it has not been in vain; 
but if the latter is to have real value, it means 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 145 

hard and earnest work on the part of the 
teacher by herself, after she has begun her 
work with the httle ones, before she can lead 
them away from mere aunless doing to that 
self -directed activity which is the aim of edu- 
cation. The workman must know his tools, 
or they are either valueless or dangerous in 
his hands. 

Many ways of giving the children the tab- 
lets for the first time will suggest themselves 
to the teacher; with one group one way will 
be better than it would be with another, and 
one may be chosen one year that would not 
be considered the next. 

If a sorting lesson such as was suggested in 
a previous paragraph be given with all these 
materials first, the first use of the tablets by 
themselves will naturally differ from that first 
use of them which has had no introduction; 
consequently no one first use of them can be 
advised definitely. 

If circular tablets be given by themselves, 
the teacher will probably put both the light 
and the dark wood in the trays, that there may 
be at least that opportunity for choice. One 
may be taken out, played with and placed on 



146 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

the table, then another and another, until all 
are taken from the trays; or all may be taken 
out as the children wish, and each child may 
be allowed to show w^hat he can do with them. 
The majority of children moved by that sense 
of rhythm which is so deep a part of human 
nature and so vital a principle in the organiza- 
tion of all life, will doubtless have rows of 
tablets rhythmically arranged : one may have 
each tablet touching the one next to it; an- 
other may have them all equal distances 
apart; another may touch two, leave a space, 
touch two more, leave another space, and so 
on; another may touch two, leave a space, 
place one, leave a space, and so on; another 
may vary the relations so far as numbers and 
spaces are concerned; still another may place 
the light and dark ones in such relation to each 
other as to vary both number and spacing. 

Where there is little variety in the individ- 
ual form, as in the case of the circle, there is 
little chance for varied relationships; there- 
fore the circular tablets will soon lose their 
interest when used by themselves. If, how- 
ever, the circles and squares are found together 
in the trays, the possibilities of holding the 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 147 

interest longer through stimulating more 
creative work will be greatly increased. 

Variation of arrangement will come through 
the light and dark color, the differences in 
form, and the relation of one article to an- 
other. As with the regular placing of one peb- 
ble after another in long rows, or one shell 
after another on the beach, so, with the rhyth- 
mic placing of these forms, a certain sense 
of satisfaction is felt by every child, while at 
the same time greater possibilities are ex- 
pressed by this material than the other. Four 
square tablets and two circular ones may sug- 
gest a wagon with wheels; two squares with 
one circle may suggest a cart. Other resem- 
blances that may escape the adult entirely 
will be seen by the child and will furnish de- 
lightful objects for representation. 

Naturally the half circles allow of greater 
variety in the relation of one to another than 
the whole circles, so the children may have 
some valuable experiences working with them 
for a while. Both of these, however, are of 
less interest and value to the children than the 
other tablets we have named. At the begin- 
ning of experimentation with square tablets. 



148 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

there will be valuable discoveries that open 
the way to important later work. The chil- 
dren will be interested in the first place in 
finding out what can be done with one tablet 
and in what ways two tablets can be related. 
The following is a possible method of ap- 
proach : 

Let the children put two together in first 
one way and then another, in as many dif- 
ferent ways as they can. When the results 
have been carefully noted, the most distinc- 
tive units may be placed on the teacher's 
table. One of these may then be chosen for 
all to make, each member of the group re- 
peating it as many times as he can with his 
material, and relating the units in various 
ways. Each child will now have produced 
either a border, an all-over pattern, or a sym- 
metrical design. If still greater variety is de- 
sired, let each child select from the units first 
produced by the group the one that he prefers 
to work with, or let him use one of his own 
original forms and repeat it to suit himself. 
Thus again, through selection and emphasis 
and through tactful insistence on standards 
the teacher has stimulated a desire for better 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 149 

work, not only with this material, but with all 
materials. 

The three typical ways of relating two 
squares which will be discovered through this 
phase of work are the edge-to-edge, the cor- 
ner-to-corner, and the corner-to-edge arrange- 
ments in their numerous variations. Experi- 
mentation with these combinations will lead 
later to their more conscious use in the work- 
ing out of more definite ideas in illustration 
and design. 

With three squares as his limitation let each 
child proceed as he did with the two to make 
as many interesting arrangements as he can, 
at the end observing the work of all the others. 
The best results may again be chosen for repe- 
tition, and some of the more suggestive ones 
may be enlarged upon with more material in 
order to give the idea still better expression. 

Two light and two dark tablets might be 
used together, and two of the resulting units 
might then be chosen for repetition. These 
two could be related in various effective com- 
binations : such as the border, the all-over de- 
sign, or the symmetrical pattern — formed by 
using one of the two units as a center and re- 



150 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

peating the other one on its four sides. Some 
child may now see places where he would like 
to add squares or take them away, thus sug- 
gesting a new type of work to the teacher for 
all the children. Each child might be given a 
limited number of squares and told to make 
any kind of center he chooses; he may then 
add squares in any number to make his de- 
sign more interesting or more beautiful.^ 

As children always like to make pictures of 
things, they will attempt to do so with even 
such material as this. They soon discover, 
however, that picture-making is not so satis- 
factory as the work already suggested; the 
teacher, realizing their desire, will give them 
the kind of material through which these pic- 
ture ideas can be better expressed. 

Of course valuable work may be done hy 
gradually removing all limitations and letting 
the children choose the amount of material 
they wish to use to carry out their ideas, 
sometimes taking it from an indefinite amount 

^ The word beautiful must here be understood in its larger 
sense, implying conformity to certain laws and the presence of 
the aesthetic elements — simplicity of outline, harmony, bal- 
ance of parts, and strength. These elements may be easily 
embodied in the use of very simple materials with very little 
children, and should affect the standards of the teacher herself. 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 151 

before them, and sometimes definitely plan- 
ning each part and asking for just the nmnber 
of parts necessary to complete it. 

Problem-games or puzzles may be intro- 
duced effectively. Let the children tell how 
many squares they think will be required to 
make a square or an oblong of the same size as 
one that the teacher has made; or let them 
first make the square or oblong themselves 
and then tell how many squares were used 
for the purpose. 

A square might be made with a given num- 
ber of tablets, and then the same number 
used to make an oblong. Naturally these 
squares and oblongs will be more than mere 
squares and oblongs to the children, who will 
quickly name them, even while comparing 
them as to length and breadth. 

In designing, the alternation of light and 
dark wood will emphasize the square, and the 
placing of two light or two dark squares in 
contact at the edges will emphasize the ob- 
long. The children first make these discover- 
ies through experimentation, and then use 
them consciously and intelligently to carry 
out some idea later on. 



152 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

The right isosceles triangular tablets, since 
their boundary lines are less uniform offer 
greater possibilities than the squares to the 
child who experiments with them. Even a 
single triangular tablet, when it is placed in 
different positions, will suggest a greater vari- 
ety of things than one square would suggest. 
In one position it suggests a tent, and several 
together in the same position suggest an en- 
campment; in another position it suggests a 
boat, and several together suggest a fleet. It 
is much more interesting to put two of these 
tablets together, because there are more ways 
of doing it than there were with the squares. 
Some of the interesting units resulting from 
arrangement by twos may be repeated, or 
used in various combinations. The discovery 
that the old friend, the square, and the larger 
sized triangle can be made in this way will 
please the child. Again, three of these tablets 
can be put together in a greater number of in- 
teresting ways than can three squares and 
the results will be to the children much more 
suggestive of known objects. A still greater 
number of tablets will encourage attempts 
to make anew the squares triangles, and ob- 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 153 

longs that came before, in order that these in- 
teresting shapes may now be used to more 
adequately represent some idea, to picture 
something. 

When they come to the use of squares and 
triangles together, the children will be stimu- 
lated to make many interesting things. At 
first, while they are experimenting, they will 
limit themselves to simple combinations with 
small numbers, but the combinations will 
soon become more elaborate and will perhaps 
grow away from the unit idea entirely. 

In making symmetrical or the so-called 
*' beauty-forms" the children might all start 
with the same design, a four-sided figure, for 
example, with four parts. When one of them 
proposes an effective change in one of the 
parts, the suggestion may be taken up by 
the whole group and the other three parts 
changed throughout accordingly. Other sug- 
gestions may then be carried out in the same 
way till three or four interesting alterations in 
the design have been accomplished. 

Another way to utilize individual freedom 
for the extension of interest is to have all the 
members of the group start with the same 



154 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

kind of center and then to let one child sug- 
gest the addition of some one tablet or of 
some one combination unit, and another di- 
rect the placing of the three. This may be re- 
peated as long as it seems to interest, the pref- 
erence being given to such arrangements as 
keep the simplicity of outline, harmony, bal- 
ance of parts, and strength of center. 

The equilateral triangle is quite simple and 
because of its uniform lines and angles does 
not admit of so much variation in arrange- 
ment as do the other triangles in this gift. 
Many interesting and pleasing forms may be 
made, however, by varying the relationship 
of light and dark. Children will make attrac- 
tive borders for hardwood floors in their doll- 
houses simply through a more conscious use 
of dark and light. " Beauty -forms " may be 
worked out on a mathematical basis of three 
and its multiples with results as interesting as 
those obtained with pairs of twos. 

The right scalene triangle, owing to the 
greater variety of its angles and boundary 
lines, will admit of greater variety in its com- 
binations than will any of the others. As it is 
less simple than the right isosceles or the 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 155 

equilateral triangle, the child's discoveries in 
his first play with it will be more or less acci- 
dental, and the arrangements will sometimes 
prove a little difficult when he tries con- 
sciously to repeat them. With this form it will 
again be well to provide play with a limited 
number at first, and allow for experimentation 
under the teacher's guidance to discover pos- 
sibilities. The same lines of work suggested 
for the other tablets may be carried out here, 
though of course with variations — in accord- 
ance with the general principle that things 
done should ever suggest ways of doing other 
things, and not be looked upon as models to 
be copied. 

Perhaps the most fascinating of all the tab- 
lets, at least to the adult mind, is the obtuse 
isosceles triangle, which can be worked into a 
greater number of aesthetic designs (because of 
its two sharp angles) than can be made with 
the others. While one tablet by itself is inter- 
esting, combinations of two are much more 
so; with larger numbers many more things in 
the child's world may now be pictured than 
before. It is well to bear in mind, however, 
that any representative work with tablets 



156 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

cannot but be crude and unsatisfactory, and 
should be merely a passing use, to be allowed 
only when suggested by the children them- 
selves. Border patterns or rhythmic arrange- 
ments and symmetrical designs — things 
which children take to quite naturally with 
the random materials constantly at hand 
outside of the school environment — will be 
found to be the best work to stimulate and 
encourage with this kind of material. 

There are many uses of the obtuse isosceles 
triangles which children are hardly likely to 
discover but which may delight the adult. 
These should not be forced upon the child at 
any time but should be accepted happily if he 
discovers them for himself. 

At times two or more kinds of tablets may 
be used together to advantage, and if one is 
fortunate enough to have in kindergarten both 
the regular size and the enlarged size of each 
kind, very happy combinations may be made 
in this way. 

To go back to earlier suggestions on this 
subject, the sorting work, limited possibly to 
the circle and square, would naturally be 
given to the younger children; the more diffi- 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 157 

cult and conscious use of the materials would 
interest only the older children, and in many 
cases even with them there might be no more 
than one kind of triangle used, the right isos- 
celes, or possibly that and the equilateral. 

With some groups of children there will be 
little interest shown in this or that particular 
thing. The use of such a thing should be 
quickly abandoned unless the teacher's confi- 
dence in its value is so strong and her power 
of vivifying it so great that she can make it 
the means of helping the children get more 
life. A dead teacher can make dead mate- 
rial of anything put into her hands. A live 
teacher can make the usually dead subject- 
matter quiver with life, and no one can tell 
her or needs to tell her how this miracle is 
accomplished. 

The Eighth Gift 

The eighth gift or gonograph is made up of 
wooden slats from four to five inches in length 
and about one half inch in width, which are 
joined by the ends in such a way as to per- 
mit of being moved about to make larger or 
smaller angles. There may be but two slats in 



158 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

the gonograph or there may be any number 
up to sixteen. The form with eight slats is 
usually chosen as being the most adaptable. 

The gonograph, like all other educational 
toys or materials, has various kinds of inter- 
est according to the ages of the children. The 
mere activity of opening and shutting or fold- 
ing and unfolding appeals strongly to the 
younger child's imagination and furnishes 
him for a time with a fascinating plaything. 
The careful unfolding of one slat suggests the 
opening of a penknife, and it will not be long 
before some child unfolds the slat at the other 
end and discovers another blade. Pencils will 
be sharpened, fruit pared, meat cut, — and 
numerous other uses of both penknife and 
table knife will keep the group occupied for 
some time. If the two end-slats are unfolded 
and the others kept together, jointed dolls 
will be discovered, which can walk across the 
table in a most fascinating way, as first one 
stiff little wooden leg and then the other is 
manipulated so as to seem to take a step. When 
two slats at each end are unfolded, the doll has 
climbed up onto stilts and can still walk, or 
else it becomes a giant capable of taking won- 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 159 

derful long strides. Small scissors will be in- 
vented or larger shears. 

Measuring experiments of all kinds will 
afford great fun. One slat may be opened by 
each child, who may then choose some object 
in the room which he thinks is just the length 
of the slat and measure it to see how nearly 
correct he was. The same thing may be tried 
with two slats opened in a straight line, then 
with three, and so on up to eight. Revers- 
ing the procedure, the children may choose 
the object first — picture-frame, door panel, 
window sash, blackboard, or the like — and 
each child may then be asked to say how 
many slats (not inches) long he thinks it is. 
However, this sort of thing, though it is fun, 
might easily turn into mere wild guessing and 
have no particular value, unless considerable 
measuring had been done beforehand. The 
next step, after this experimentation, might 
be the real measuring of the same objects, 
which would enhance the value and interest 
of the problems proposed. 

A third kind of experimentation — of in- 
terest, like the second, to the older children — 
is to open the whole gonograph, unfold all the 



160 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

slats, and see how many different things can 
be made by using two slats, then three, then 
four, and so on up to eight. Doors, windows, 
houses, churches, boats, fences, and various 
other things will be suggested in outline, but 
each representation will necessarily be only 
suggestive and fleeting, as the main interest 
will lie in the rapid change from one thing 
to another. The difficulty in the way of sat- 
isfactory representation arises from the fact 
that the slats are joined and are therefore not 
very well adapted to picture an object whose 
lines are disproportionate to the fixed length 
of one slat. 

It should be mentioned in passing that the 
children find this material a happy addition 
to certain kinds of work on the sand table, 
where a yard, a garden, or a field would be 
improved by neat lines of fence. 

In many kindergartens the gonograph is 
little known and never used. These sugges- 
tions are only for those who are interested 
and who see in them a means of giving greater 
value through new experiences to some of the 
natural activities already started. 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 161 

The Ninth Gift 

The ninth gift consists of a number of flexi- 
ble wooden slats about ten inches in length 
and one half inch in width. These are not 
joined in any way. 

The ninth gift admits naturally of greater 
freedom in its use than the eighth. The child 
finds it easy to place these slats end to end, 
side by side, or crosswise in various positions. 

A little experimenting at the table even 
with only two of them will stimulate on the 
part of the child a desire for more room, where 
he can place them in a greater variety of posi- 
tions without interfering with his neighbors 
on either side. The floor is the best possible 
place for the play with this gift, and just as it 
demanded more space for its use, so this space 
in turn stimulates a larger use. On the floor 
each child may make his own boat or ship, 
transforming the boards under his feet into 
the restless sea. Houses, stores, school build- 
ings, churches, railroad stations, and even 
railroads may be pictured here. The child 
may make the representation of his house 
more real by using the slats to make the 



162 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

rooms in outline about him, as children some- 
times do with pebbles or with grass and 
leaves. The further development of this idea 
will lead to the arrangement of the dwellings 
in rows, with streets or sidewalks of slats to 
give the feeling of a little community. 

When a child crosses two slats at the center 
and holds them together with a pin, he finds 
he has made a simple and usable compass. 
Placing a piece of chalk or a pencil at one of 
the ends, he can swing it around, while the pin 
holds it to the paper, and can draw his cir- 
cle. Some child of an investigative turn of 
mind will now be likely to take the next step 
and begin to experiment in making larger or 
smaller circles. This same position may sug- 
gest the hands of a clock to some child, when 
all might be given the problem of arranging 
them in some way that will better express 
the idea. 

An entirely new set of experiences may be 
opened up by the quite accidental discovery 
of some child that a slat will vibrate to dijffer- 
ent tones, if it is held firmly with one hand so 
that it projects beyond the edge of the table 
and is snapped with the other hand at the 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 163 

projecting end. Naturally, the greater the 
length of the projecting end, the lower will be 
the tone. The children themselves may make 
this discovery, if one half of the group extend 
their slats only a very little way beyond the 
edge, while the other half extend theirs con- 
siderably farther, each division then taking 
turns at listening to the tones produced by 
the other. One child on one side may play 
and then one on the other; all may listen for 
the highest or the lowest tone and see if they 
can locate and reproduce it. When all the 
**keys" are going at once, it will often puzzle 
the very child who is producing the particular 
tone to locate it; but all will be eager to be 
puzzled in just this way — eager to listen, and 
eager to try. A number of variations will be 
suggested, but play of this kind should not 
be carried on too long, as of course such ex- 
perimentations, unless they are intelligently 
organized, may easily result only in confusion 
and noise, and lose all their value. 

The Tenth Gift 

The tenth gift consists of a number of 
wooden sticks either colored or uncolored, 



164 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

varying in length from one to five or ten 
inches. 

The tenth gift answers a need which is sure 
to be felt as the children become more con- 
scious of the limitation imposed by uniformity 
of length in the slats with which they have 
been trying to picture objects of interest. 
The question of how the material is to be 
presented for the first time — whether in a 
selected lot of some one length, in lots of two 
contrasting lengths each, or in mixed lengths 
of limited or unlimited number — will depend 
upon the teacher's knowledge of her children. 
One thing that she will always bear in mind is 
that too great an amount and variety of new 
material confuses, whereas the placing of some 
sort of limitation frees the power of the mind 
and stimulates to more vigorous and whole- 
some activity. 

Suppose sixteen sticks, eight each of two 
different lengths, are given to each child in 
his tray or box. There is a chance for individ- 
ual initiative when two only are taken out by 
each child and placed in various positions in 
reference to each other: touching end to end 
in a straight line, at right angles, parallel, 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 165 

the end of one toucliing the middle point of 
the other at right angles or obliquely, or in 
variations of any of these positions. The child 
who chooses two short sticks will obtain one 
result; the one who chooses two long ones, 
another; and the one who chooses one short 
and one long one, still another. Each child 
may repeat his arrangement of the two sticks, 
or all may repeat some selected arrangement 
to make a border around the table. This kind 
of group work is always interesting and 
has the merit as an experience that it soon 
teaches the children the necessity of working 
on a definite plan, if the border is to be a con- 
tinuous one and bear the requisite relation 
to the edge of the table. This implies fore- 
thought and purposeful cooperation on the 
part of all the members of the group. 

Perhaps their first experiments with two 
sticks have given the bare suggestion of 
something which can be adequately done 
only with a larger amount of material. This 
is another instance in which the choice of 
which line of activity shall be carried on and 
which one shall be held over for future use 
will depend upon the wisdom and sympathy 



166 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

of the teacher. Instead of two sticks, three 
may be taken, or four, or any number, and as 
the experimentation progresses endless sug- 
gestions will be found for future work either 
with the same number or with an unlimited 
number of sticks. 

Let us now suppose four sticks of the same 
length to be the material decided upon by the 
teacher for the beginning of the lesson. How 
many different things can be done with these 
four sticks ! After one thing is done, each child 
may be given four more to do another, — and 
so on, for as many things as he can find to do. 
Some of the achievements will be suggestive 
and some will not. In time nearly every one 
will make the square. To some it will be but 
a square and to others a window, a house, 
a garden, or any one of a number of other 
things which a child will see. Here the teacher 
will find two different lines of work suggested, 
one of which she will direct during this period 
and the other lay aside for future use, depend- 
ing upon the values as she sees them. If the 
square is familiar to all and has been empha- 
sized through one child's work, everybody 
may then return all his sticks except four to 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 167 

his tray and make a square. After this is done 
let them try to make some other kind of a 
square. The results will be interesting. Some 
children will make squares twice as large, 
others will make them three times as large, 
and still others will produce oblongs instead 
of squares. Perhaps one child will say that if 
he had smaller sticks he could make a smaller 
square. The five different lengths of sticks 
may then be placed on the teacher's table and 
the children invited to come and get sticks 
that would help them make as many different 
''kinds" of squares as possible. They will 
soon learn from experience how many sticks 
will be needed for each "kind," and they will 
discover also that the difference in the num- 
ber required is a question of size rather than 
of "kind." 

Some child will probably place his five 
squares of different sizes in a row touching 
each other; another will place them in a row 
not touching; a third may put the smallest 
one inside of the largest. This will lead to 
another problem: can any one else put one 
square inside of another? Out of this sugges- 
tion will grow many combinations, until finally 



168 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS - 

some one will discover that by beginning 
with the smallest square and then taking the 
next larger, and so on, each one up to the 
largest may be enclosed in the square next in 
size, or that the same thing may be accom- 
plished in the reverse order. Perhaps one 
child who has made the largest one and put 
the smallest one inside, has got from the com- 
bination the suggestion of a house with a 
window. Where could he place the little 
square to make it look more like a window in 
a house, and what could be done with the big 
square to make it look more like a house? 
More sticks will be required, but there are 
all the sticks that were used for the other 
squares; these may now be used to make a 
better house in any way the child chooses. 
Some will add a roof, some a door, some a 
chimney; others will make a fence, a tree, a 
barn, or anything else related to a house in 
the child's mind that will make his somewhat 
crude picture more suggestive. The yoimger 
children will be satisfied with these suggestive 
additions, but the older ones will see greater 
possibilities if they could begin in a different 
way. As a consequence the nature of the next 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 169 

lesson may now be determined by the result 
of this one, instead of being made to conform 
to a detailed plan previously worked out in 
the teacher's mind. Not that the teacher is to 
have no plan; on the contrary, she must have 
one, but it is to be so big and general and flex- 
ible and inclusive that it will be capable of 
supplying the needs of all the children in the 
right way when the time comes. And so the next 
use of this gift may be one which will allow 
each child to choose his own amount of mate- 
rial both as to length and number of sticks, 
with the sole limitation that he must make 
the best and most interesting house possible. 
Among the interesting things which will re- 
sult from a limitation to three sticks will be 
the triangle. There will be different sizes and 
kinds according to the lengths of the sticks. 
Emphasis should be put upon size rather than 
kind. If some child, however, should note 
the difference in kind and ask questions about 
it, the teacher of course should explain to 
him in simple terms such as he can under- 
stand, but should not dwell upon it or empha- 
size it again. Tents, an encampment, boats 
with sails, chicken-coops, and other forms 



170 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

will be suggested by these different triangles 
and delightedly worked out by the little ones. 

Five sticks may be used as a basis, or six, 
seven, eight, nine or ten; in fact any number 
may be chosen as a basis at the beginning of 
the work period, and then the children per- 
mitted to add to it as their needs demand 
the use of a larger number in order to more 
clearly express their ideas. Or the sticks may 
be chosen freely at the beginning of the period 
with no reference to a limitation placed on 
the number. 

Various repetitions and combinations of 
units may be tried with a view to working 
out "beauty -forms," symmetrical forms, and 
borders, or to discovering suggestions upon 
which life forms may be based. 

The point of departure for a lesson may be 
some common idea which each individual may 
work out to suit himself; or it may be for each 
child an idea of his own which he may work 
out in his own way; or it may be an idea com- 
mon to a small portion of the group, worked 
out through the cooperation of the children 
rather than individually or with the whole 
group. 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 171 

It is argued that pictures made with 
straight Hues only are crude and should not 
be encouraged. When we remember that a 
few straight lines in various combinations 
were very suggestive to a primitive mind, and 
that they were used extensively in Egyptian 
and other early art, that fathers and mothers 
still use them quite extensively in drawing 
pictures for the child long before he comes to 
kindergarten, and also that the little child 
is not yet sesthetic but only on the way to 
becoming so, we can see that some such work 
and play as this has a legitimate interest as 
a passing phase in his development. 

It is much better that such work should 
not be given to the children on the day that 
they have drawing. If, however, the two are 
given on the same day, let the drawing pre- 
cede the gift lesson, in order that the drawing 
may not be influenced by the work with the 
sticks. The reason for this is that the drawing 
which we are encouraging for little children 
to-day has more to do with mass than with 
lines. On the other hand, it is better for the 
child to work out the cruder ideas that lie 
somewhat below the plane of the aesthetic by 



172 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

making pictures with the sticks rather than 
with the pencil, as such discrimination will 
tend to emphasize the higher standard. 

Many interesting counting and number 
puzzles will grow out of play with this mate- 
rial. These will be a source of delight for a few 
children in each group, but there will always 
be some to whom they give little pleasure. If 
the numbers or number combinations recog- 
nized in these puzzles be applied in other 
work later on, then they are of real value; and 
every wise teacher will know how to give the 
child a chance to use the thing he has learned 
or the discovery he has made. 

The Eleventh Gift 

The eleventh gift consists of a number of 
metal rings — wholes, halves, and quarters, 
measuring two inches, one and one-half 
inches, and one inch in diameter. 

The eleventh gift gives the first opportunity 
in the flat materials for the use of the curved 
line. The children often attempt to make 
with the sticks pictures of things which can 
be much better represented with curved lines. 
Such efforts are accepted for the time being, 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 173 

but the emphasis and commendation are 
given the more appropriate use of the mate- 
rial at hand; the material with the new and 
needed characteristics is supplied when this 
is felt. 

The whole rings give great delight to the 
younger children, who will put them on their 
arms for bracelets, roll them across the table 
or across the floor, and twirl them, at first 
more or less at random, and then with more 
and more control. To the older children, who 
are capable of experiencing a certain sense of 
pleasure in the forms themselves with their 
bright shiny curves, the rings will have a dif- 
ferent interest. The whole rings will receive 
attention first, the halves and quarters being 
reserved for a time to meet a need which will 
arise later on in the child's play. 

At one time in the presentation of this gift 
rings of one size only will be given; at another 
two sizes, possibly the largest and smallest, 
and at another time all three sizes. Again the 
number given to each child may vary. It may 
be one, two, three, or any number. But from 
these first experimentations with a limited 
number will come numerous suggestions for 



174 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

future hours of work. If rings of only one size 
are given to the children, even a good many in 
the hands of each child will not hold the inter- 
est for long or be of much benefit, as there is so 
little that can be done with them. The wise 
teacher, realizing this, will add a second and 
possibly a third size before the lesson is ended 
in order to provide something of variety. 

If the large rings are placed in rows, each 
child will place the smaller one when it is 
given, according to his own fancy. In one 
case it will be placed in the center of the big 
ring; another perhaps will be inside of the big 
ring, but touching it at the back, front, right, 
or left; another will be outside of the ring, but 
touching — it makes little difference on which 
side; or possibly it will be in contact with two 
large rings that have themselves been placed 
in juxtaposition. Whatever each child does 
with the one small ring in the first instance, 
he will be encouraged to repeat with the other 
two when they are given him to relate to the 
remaining large rings. After each one has ar- 
ranged his rings to suit him his attention may 
be called to what the others have done. The 
teacher might have those which they all 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 175 

choose made on her own table by the children 
who made them, and then all might have the 
pleasure of making each arrangement or some 
one or two favorite arrangements. 

If a border begun with a few rings is par- 
ticularly good, enough material might be 
given each child to extend it over his own 
space; or if some special one is chosen, it 
might be made to go all the way round the 
table, each child making his part. 

When rings of the three different sizes are 
given to each child, many more interesting 
arrangements and variations will be made 
than were made with two sizes. It is fascinat- 
ing to see how many different patterns can be 
made with either the borders or the symmet- 
rical designs based on three or four as center, 
by merely changing the position of one or two 
rings with reference to the center. 

Life forms cannot be very satisfactorily 
made with these circles alone, although the 
children will attempt many. In order to get 
better effects they will lap one ring over an- 
other; this will reveal the need of the broken 
ring — halves and quarters — which may 
now be supplied. The half-rings may be in- 



176 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

troduced first, to be used either by themselves 
or in connection with the whole rings. The 
joining of two halves to make a whole will 
naturally be one of the first results if each 
child is given halves of the same size. Other 
forms will be discovered as the child hits upon 
various ways of placing the two halves in con- 
tact. The simple units thus found will lend 
themselves to combination and repetition in 
border or design. 

Of course an entirely different set of results 
will be obtained when rings of different sizes 
are chosen. Nice variations in form will ap- 
pear, depending upon which two of the three 
sizes are combined; for it is now a question 
not only of difference in size, but of degree 
of difference also. Interest will be augmented 
when the child discovers that repetition al- 
ters the character of the unit and that new 
forms of beauty appear in the curves as they 
are continued. It may be that the child will 
decide to change his unit in the repetition in 
order to improve the whole border or pattern. 
The idea will have been suggested to him by 
the new appearances of units when seen in 
combination. This kind of observation and 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 177 

appreciation should be encouraged and the 
child who so observes should be given oppor- 
tunity to utilize his discoveries in future work. 

One time the quarter-rings may be intro- 
duced by themselves, four or more at a time 
of the same size, or in assortments of two or 
three sizes. Another time there may be more 
brought in incidentally when some child in 
his use of half -rings finds that he needs quar- 
ter-curves in order to give adequate expres- 
sion to his idea. The quarter-rings have great 
charm even when used in only one size, as the 
combination of these shorter arcs gives a 
greater variability of curves and produces 
more delicate aesthetic effects. After the ex- 
perimentation with two of the same size, — 
any one of the three sizes will serve the pur- 
pose, — ^^it will be found interesting to try 
what can be done with two of different sizes, 
taking each of the three size-combinations in 
turn. 

Still more interesting are the various com- 
binations made by using wholes and halves 
together, wholes and quarters, and halves 
and quarters in their different sizes. Teachers 
who are interested in making discoveries for 



178 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

themselves in the applications of principles 
already developed with other materials might 
try, in these suggested combinations, first only 
one of each of two kinds, then one of each 
of three kinds, and so on; next they may take 
two of each of two kinds, two of each of three 
kinds, and so on, finally using as many of each 
and all as are desired. The advantage which 
teachers will discover in doing this experi- 
menting first of all for themselves is that it 
will make them more thoroughly acquainted 
with their subject-matter and therefore bet- 
ter able to choose limitations and emphasize 
combinations truly helpful toward the devel- 
opment of power in the children. For it is to 
be borne in mind that certain combinations 
will help more than others to deepen the sense 
of the beautiful, and develop appreciation. 
These the teacher must be able to recognize 
when some child discovers them, in order 
that time may not be wasted on what is use- 
less and unprofitable. 

With whole, half and quarter rings freely 
used, after their value has been discovered 
through the suggested experimentation, many 
fruits, vegetables, flowers, dishes of various 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 179 

sorts, and other "life forms" may be made, 
and very suggestively and satisfactorily, too. 

This is distinctly the most sesthetic of the 
later gifts, and will appeal, therefore, to cer- 
tain children in the group more than to 
others. Some will be far more interested in 
making pictiu*es of things with this material 
than they will be in making borders or sym- 
metrical designs; others of course will show 
quite the opposite interests and tastes. 

Just as there are gifts suitable for different 
occasions, so there are gifts which appeal 
more strongly to some children than to others, 
and uses which make a stronger appeal to 
some than to others; the wise teacher is the 
one who keeps her work so balanced that each 
child has a chance to enter into all kinds of 
work, while receiving help and encourage- 
ment according to his particular needs and 
interests. Sometimes a new material in which 
there has been no particular interest up to 
that time may suddenly be the means of re- 
vealing to the child some hidden power of 
which he little dreamed. Little children ought 
therefore to be given opportunity to play and 
work with all kinds of materials, in order that 



180 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

through some one or two or more they may 
begin to find themselves. 

The Twelfth Gift 

The first six gifts were made up of solids; 
the tablets embodied the idea of surface; the 
remaining gifts up to the twelfth embodied 
the idea of lines both straight and curved. 
In the twelfth gift dimension has been finally 
superseded by the idea of the mere point repre- 
sented by a handful of seeds of any kind that will 
lie easily on the table. The German lentil is the 
kind in most common use. 

Sometimes there will be an advantage in 
using several different kinds of seeds at once; 
at other times it will be best to use one kind 
alone. If a number of different kinds are used 
at the beginning, some kind of sorting experi- 
ence will probably result. Some seeds most 
attractive for this use would be pumpkin, 
squash, red citron seeds, black and white seeds 
of the watermelon, yellow, dark red, and 
purple grains of corn. Peas and beans are not 
good, as they roll away too easily. Canta- 
loupe seeds and any others that are some- 
what flat may be added to this collection. 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 181 

The lentils ought to be kept in a separate 
box for a different kind of use. 

As a result of sorting there will be some 
placing, perhaps at definite points on the 
table; or a line or row may be made from 
point to point, or figures sketched in outline. 
Possibly the seeds will be placed in piles. In 
that case it will be noticed that the children, 
urged by their instinctive desire to do some- 
thing, will begin rather aimlessly to change 
the piles. This suggests immediately to the 
teacher what is without doubt the most in- 
teresting and valuable use of the gift : the use 
of the seeds in mass. The next time the chil- 
dren are given this gift, the lesson will natu- 
rally take up that form of experimentation. 
The miscellaneous varieties may be set aside 
for the present and each child may be given 
at least a double-handful of lentils. If each 
is permitted to use his whole supply, he will 
probably pour them from his tray to a place 
before him on the table. The pouring will 
form a pile, but some seeds will be scattered 
about at the sides : the child's natural impulse 
is to push with the edge of his outspread 
hands the scattered ones back towards the 



182 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

central pile. This is the beginning of a most 
fascinating type of work which the children 
will take to with great interest. When you 
have pushed your seeds together as close as 
you can, what do they make you think of.^^ 
Do they look like anything .^^ Could you make 
them look more like it by changing them a 
little — that is, by moving many in a mass, 
not one at a time.^^ Perhaps they may sug- 
gest a ball, an orange, a pumpkin, an apple, 
a peach, or a pear. If one looks more like an 
orange, see if all could be made to look like 
oranges. If one suggests a pear, how could 
all of these round ones be quickly changed 
to look more like pears .^^ Can you quickly ^ 
change the seeds so they will look like a 
lemon, a banana, a cucumber, a sweet potato, 
or any other fruit or vegetable known by all 
the children .f^ 

The teacher may have various fruits and 
vegetables in a bag and put them on the 
table one at a time as the changes are made, 
to correct the rather vague images in the 
children's minds. The fruit or vegetable thus 

^ This suggestion that the child work quickly is to avoid 
fine work, or the handling of individual seeds, and to encourage 
the use of the whole hand and arm. 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 183 

produced will be a model; but what is a 
model to a child in kindergarten? Only a sug- 
gestion and not a particular thing to be ex- 
actly copied by each child. An apple used as 
a model is merely an embodiment of all the 
apples the child has ever known, and that is 
why he sees in his model only a suggestion 
and never copies it exactly. That is why he 
glances at it once or twice and then calmly 
goes on with his work as if it did not exist; it 
is also why he takes the liberty of making any 
variation that memory may suggest. 

Trees may be made in the same quick, 
simple way that fruits were made and with 
quite as satisfactory results: tall trees with 
straight trunks and a few seeds spread out 
below to suggest the ground; trees like pop- 
lars whose branches grow close to the trunk; 
trees with pointed tops like pines, spruce 
and fir; or various trees with wide-spreading 
branches. The child will love the rapid change 
from one form to another with this plastic 
and suggestive material, and will very soon 
grow quite skillful in his manipulation. Rab- 
bits with long ears, fluffy chicks with little 
bills, elephants with big legs and curling 



184 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

trunks, and other animals of farmyard or 
zoo will be attempted delightedly, and often 
even with satisfying results — at least so far 
as the child is concerned. 

When the seeds are arranged in a solid 
mass, the shape can be changed from within 
instead of from without. By putting two or 
more fingers in the center and stirring them 
about, an opening is made that is suggestive 
and leads to all sorts of other things. This 
may suggest a nest, or a doughnut, or the 
letter "O" (to some child who has learned to 
know some of his letters), or perhaps a basket, 
if the opening is a little nearer the back edge 
than the front. It may be seen that a better 
basket could be made by modeling it both 
inside and outside. Houses with windows, 
doors, and chimneys may also be made in this 
way. Probably some one will add a fence and 
steps, or may place trees and bushes in front 
of it. All the work is to be done by massing 
the seeds, sometimes moving them with one 
hand or with both, or perhaps with two or 
three fingers of either hand or of both. This 
gives splendid opportunity for the use of both 
hands at one time. 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 185 

In making a garden the lentils may be used 
for the general background while the brightly 
colored seeds or shells serve as blossoms. 
This will naturally lead away from the mass 
work to another mode of handling the seeds. 
Perhaps they may be placed one by one to 
form the stalk of a plant ending in a bright 
blossom, and having either long or rounded 
leaves made by massing selected seeds. Still 
another type of work may be found in the 
outlining of figures, although it would not be 
well, on account of the difficulty in handling 
the seeds one by one, to encourage much 
work of this kind, — the child's offerings 
should be accepted and given whatever value 
is possible, while no opportunity to encour- 
age the mass work is neglected or overlooked. 

Either grass seed or dry sand on oilcloth, 
both of which are well adapted for mass work, 
may be used with interest in special forms of 
outlining. Figures may be traced with the 
seeds by letting them slip gradually from the 
hand as it moves over a smooth surface. 
Similarly the sand may be allowed to trickle 
from the small opening of a paper cornucopia 
as it traces figures on paper or oilcloth. 



186 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

Little children cannot be expected to achieve 
such artistic results as the Japanese women 
achieve on their lacquer trays in this way, but 
the mere attempt will be an interesting and 
joyous experience. 

This will be as fitting a place as any for me 
to remind the teacher of the desirability of 
providing occasionally for the free choosing 
of materials or activities by the children. 
Sometimes the group as a whole may decide 
upon what gift they are all to play with; 
sometimes each child may make the choice 
for himself. If the cupboards are constructed 
in such a way that they are accessible to the 
children^ — and this, of course, is the way in 
which they should be constructed, — each 
child may help himself to what he wants and 
take it to his own place on table or floor 
or wherever he cares to have it, to do with as 
he pleases. 

The teacher will have to judge according 
to circumstances how much of such work is 
valuable, and how often it is to be carried on. 
So long as she can really observe it all and 
make her observations useful through the 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 187 

help they enable her to give the mdividual 
children, so long has it value. But when her 
observation means standing aside while the 
children merely repeat their experiences with- 
out enrichment, or capriciously take first one 
gift from the cupboard and then another and 
do nothing with any of them, then its value 
ceases and it would be better to give fewer 
such opportunities. 

Suggestive combinations 

Some of the most interesting work done 
with the flat material is to be found in combi- 
nations of two or more gifts. If the sorting of 
this material has been done earlier, then most 
naturally it will grow out of suggestions which 
arose there. 

The tablets and any of the other flat mate- 
rials make less satisfactory combinations, so 
we shall not take time to consider them. The 
gonograph and un jointed slat will generally 
be eliminated on the same ground. This 
leaves the sticks, the rings, and the seeds or 
shells, — whose happy combinations delight 
many a small child. 

Much may be done by merely putting 



188 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

together one stick and one ring. The stick 
may be five inches long and the ring two 
inches in diameter, or the stick may be short 
and the ring small; in short, a stick of any one 
of the ^ve lengths may be used with a ring of 
any one of the three diameters, with a corre- 
sponding variety of results. The stick may be 
placed across the ring, or, if short, inside it; 
one end may touch the ring outside, perhaps 
suggesting a balloon on a string or a stick, or 
its middle may touch the ring anywhere on 
the outside. Two sticks and one ring may be 
used in various combinations or units, or two 
sticks and two rings, and these units may be 
repeated many times. If all the children are 
using the same unit, the border might be 
made to extend entirely around the table. 
When each one is using his own unit and 
repeating it to fill his own space, if a few chil- 
dren should get through before the others, 
more material might be given them with 
which to work at a pleasing design invented 
by some other child; or each might repeat his 
own design with smaller or larger material of 
the same nature. If the uncolored sticks were 
used at first, then it might be very interesting 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 189 

to repeat the design with colored sticks of 
the child's own choosing. These combinations 
may be varied according to the various par- 
ticulars of difference in the material, — as the 
length of sticks, the color of sticks, the size of 
rings, and the number of either rings or sticks. 
The children themselves will suggest differ- 
ent combinations and ask for them, rejoicing 
in their own inventions. 

Combinations of half -rings and sticks have 
even more possibilities. Try yourself the ex- 
periment of putting together one half-ring 
and one stick in as many different ways as 
possible, varying size and length in the same 
way as with whole rings and sticks. Take two 
of each, or one of one kind and two of the 
other, and see what will happen. Then con- 
sciously choose any of these combinations you 
have discovered and use it to carry out some 
idea in your own mind. Doing this will help 
one to appreciate what a simple discovery 
means to a small child, and at the same time 
should make one realize the difference in 
product as the result of the working of the 
child mind and the adult mind. The teacher 
who misses this realization is without one 



190 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

essential clue to the right direction of chil- 
dren's activities and is likely to impose adult 
work unconsciously upon little children. 

Two sticks and one half-ring in certain 
combinations will suggest arches, from which 
many delightful things may grow. By re- 
peating this combination with sticks of differ- 
ent lengths and relating them, windows, door- 
ways, and gateways are suggested, and whole 
pictures may then be made of which these 
are but part. Two sticks and two half -rings 
may become the basis of a different type of 
work. These units or any others which may 
be made with this limited amount of material 
will have added interest if repeated; or one 
unit by itself may be so suggestive of some 
object familiar to the child, that if he is al- 
lowed to use any material that will better 
carry out this idea, he will be started on a 
genuinely creative piece of work. Suppose the 
unit made suggests a banjo. The addition of 
some small sticks will make a much better 
one. This in turn suggests other musical in- 
struments, and a few of the children who are 
more familiar with such things may delight 
in working them out, while the others who 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 191 

are uninterested will turn their attention to 
other things. 

Often the limited material with which the 
beginnings are made will be added to in order 
to improve the picture, until, when the final 
result is accomplished, the original form will 
have been completely absorbed and forgotten. 

The combinations of sticks and quarter- 
rings are even more interesting to some chil- 
dren, the others will find them relatively 
unattractive. Better arches, Gothic windows, 
and simple but beautiful rose-windows may 
be made with them. There will be great op- 
portunity here for variation, and for the mak- 
ing of so-called "life forms" or pictures. The 
straight lines of different lengths and the 
quarter-rings offer splendid material for the 
making of many forms which are truly repre- 
sentative — what may truly be called pic- 
tures. 

Combinations need not be limited to sticks 
and single parts of the curved-line gift, but 
two or more parts may be combined, pro- 
vided those are selected which will help the 
children to see more of beauty about them 
and to be more interested in what they see. 



192 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

Half-rings and shells or seeds put in the 
same tray and given to each child will stimu- 
late an interest in arrangement that will bring 
attractive results, though the kinds of results 
will depend upon the age of the children doing 
the work. Each half-ring may hold a shell, 
and if the shells are of different sizes, the 
younger children will fit each to its kind, the 
largest shell in the largest half-ring and the 
smallest in the smallest. These combinations 
may be changed in relation to one another and 
then again changed in themselves. 

Two half-rings and one shell may be used 
in the beginning, or one half-ring and two 
shells, and then changes made in number and 
size as the work develops. Still greater va- 
riety is made possible by using sticks, rings, 
and seeds together; or sticks, half -rings and 
shells; or sticks, quarter-rings, and seeds or 
shells. The thing to remember is that in the 
beginning a too great variety of material con- 
fuses, while a somewhat limited amount gives 
more power and hence more confidence. After 
children have made many discoveries through 
their use of simple combinations, they should 
be able to choose from an unlimited amount 



THE FLAT MATERIALS 193 

those kinds and parts with which they can 
work most happily and intelligently. 

Sometimes when the children have been 
allowed to vary the unit chosen in the be- 
ginning, each in his own way, it interests 
them to have the teacher quickly draw these 
different variations on the board. It will then 
interest the teacher as well as the children 
to see how many will recognize their own 
designs in these drawings, and be ready to 
suggest from the drawings how they may 
again be varied. The keen observation and 
recognition of form that this requires is a 
splendid preparation for the recognition of 
sentences and words on the blackboard when 
the children enter the first grade. 

These suggestions are merely offered as 
helps in the beginning of the use of any ma- 
terials; but how much of such work shall be 
done or for what length of time, must be left 
to the judgment of the teacher. She is the one 
who will see in these beginnings possible lines 
of work for the future which may be of an 
entirely different nature from that which the 
children are doing. If she knows her chil- 
dren and her materials and has mastered the 



194 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

essential educational principles, she will have 
the interest, the enthusiasm, and the courage 
to work along in her own way far beyond 
what any one could prescribe, and in ways 
that may be suggested by no one but her 
children. 



CHAPTER V 

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 

In the first chapter the point was made 
that education is the adjustment of the in- 
dividual to his ever-widening environment, 
and that this adjustment demands the in- 
teraction of f om* factors : the individual him- 
self, raw materials, his fellow-men, and race 
experience. The purpose of the succeeding 
chapters has been to indicate specific ways of 
making these educative adaptations. 

An attempt has been made to show how 
the individual is always active; how his 
activity is responsive to the inner stimulus of 
a life impulse and to the outer stimulus of 
objects in the sentient world; and how this 
activity, merely aimless in the beginning, 
grows gradually into intelligent and purposed 
action. 

We have taken as our "raw material" but 
one of the playthings or materials of the 
kindergarten, the gifts, and have considered 
some of the natural, impulsive responses of 



196 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

little children to these gifts; we have then 
proposed rational modes whereby these same 
responses may be made more significant to 
the children and may become a means of de- 
veloping more conscious and thoughtful re- 
sponses to these and other materials. 

For our "fellow-men" we have taken a 
social group of ten or more children having 
common impulses, instincts, interests, and 
activities, and have shown how each one's 
life is enriched by the contributions of the 
others of his kind, and how there are many 
social adjustments being made in every joint 
activity of children. The one who leads 
makes social adjustments as well as the one 
who follows, and the kindergarten affords an 
endless number of opportunities for the first 
mastery in this most important phase of 
experience. 

"Race experience" we have seen repre- 
sented in the teacher — in her knowledge, 
skill, appreciation, and wisdom, and in her 
standards of value, which are an inheritance 
of the ages used by her to lift the acts of 
her children to ever-higher levels of conscious- 
ness and give them ever-increasing power. 



IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 197 

With each succeeding gift we have shown 
how these four elements may be practically 
related : the child's natural activity, the ma- 
terial used as a stimulus, the social group as 
a factor in individual development, and the 
teacher's standards as a means of direction 
or guidance. 

The gifts have been discussed in the order 
of their numerical relation to a series, and 
not in the order of their relation to a child's 
needs. This has been done as a mere matter of 
convenience to both reader and writer. How- 
ever, the order in which they are presented 
according to the needs of the children must 
necessarily differ with each group according 
to the teacher's understanding of the needs of 
that group and her knowledge of the mate-^ 
rials. 

With the youngest children some of the 
gifts will not be used at all. With some groups 
all of them will be used in the course of the 
two years. 

The question is often asked as to whether 
or not a gift should be kept in use until its 
possibilities have been exhausted. Such a 
question must arise from a deficient sense of 



198 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

the richness of this material. In my own 
experience I have yet to meet the adult who 
has exhausted the possibilities of any one of 
the gifts. There is no likelihood, therefore, 
that a group of little children will be able to 
"finish" a gift in this sense in less than two 
years' time. Besides, education is not a matter 
of training a child to do perfectly everything 
that can be done with his material, but of 
leading him to discover new uses constantly. 
The aim is not to exhaust the possibilities of 
the subject-matter, but to develop the crea- 
tive power of the child. Sometimes this may 
be better done through one material than 
another. It would be an interesting and val- 
uable study in this connection to compare the 
^ifts with each of the other kindergarten ma- 
terials, and it is regrettable, from the point of 
view of accuracy and clearness, that the nec- 
essary limitation of subject-matter makes it 
impossible to enter upon such an investiga- 
tion in these pages. 

Just as one kindergarten material will be 
more valuable than another as a means of 
accomplishing some specific aim, so any one 
of the gifts may be found to be more useful 



IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 199 

at a certain time than another, according to 
its suitability for some special purpose or its 
value as a means of reinforcing what is be- 
ing done with another gift. For example, the 
larger use of the first and second gifts, as has 
already been said, is intended for the nurs- 
ery, though both are capable of affording the 
children a number of valuable experiences in 
kindergarten. Some of these experiences will 
come appropriately during the first part of 
the year, and some after an interval at the 
end of the year, when the children are ready 
to find new uses and discover new possibilities. 
The third gift, as it is closely limited in 
quantity and lacks variety in form, will nat- 
urally have no interest for any but the young- 
est children, whose interest in doing pre- 
dominates over their interest in the thing 
done. The child who has used a greater 
number of blocks, experiencing the advan- 
tages of greater variety, becomes interested 
in the problem of what can be done, and can- 
not help being indifferent and bored if he is 
obliged to return to the material used at an 
earlier stage to satisfy this instinct for mere 
doing. In this respect he is not at all different 



200 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

from the older person, who, having experi- 
enced the joy of reading Les Miserahles in the 
French, finds himself bored and disheartened 
when obliged to go back to the use of a primer. 

The four building gifts are related to each 
other in such a way as to make the third and 
fourth each of less interest after the fifth and 
sixth have become known. This is on account 
of the larger possibilities of the latter two; 
but the third and fourth, when used together, 
afford an excellent opportunity for creative 
work, even though the fifth and sixth have 
preceded. It may be that the younger group 
of children will be quite content with what 
they can do with the third and fourth to- 
gether, and not use the fifth and sixth at all 
during their first year. This means that the 
tablets (at least one or more of them), the 
sticks, the rings, and the seeds or shells will 
be enjoyed by the little ones before they have 
had an opportunity of trying their hands at 
the more complicated building gifts. 

Another question is often asked: should 
one gift be used two or more days in succes- 
sion.^ This depends entirely upon the aim of 
the teacher. If a group of children in using 



IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 201 

any one gift become deeply interested either 
in the discoveries they are making, or in the 
more advanced use of the gift to carry out 
some idea, it may be used to great advantage 
the following day and even the day after. 
Such continued use would be far better for 
the child, in view of the expansion of his 
creative power, than would be the abrupt 
checking of an interest that has been aroused 
and is struggling for expression. On the other 
hand, there are times when the teacher real- 
izes that if she gives a different gift the next 
day, the children will come back with a 
fresher interest to the present one the day 
after, and sometimes even a week after. 

As with all other kindergarten materials, 
there is in the gifts such a variety to choose 
from that children never need be bored by 
too much repetition. Each gift appeals, more- 
over, to a different constructive interest. 
This fact, apart from its importance in re- 
lieving monotony for the children, provides 
the teacher with a greater variety of resources 
with which to meet the differing needs of 
individuals and makes it possible for her to 
supplement the one gift with another. 



202 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

In general it is better for the children to 
have during the two table periods of each 
morning the two kinds of activity — of the 
gifts, that is, and the occupations. There will 
be times, however, when it is much better for 
both periods to be used for gift work, and 
other times when the gift will be omitted and 
both periods used for occupations. None of 
these things can be determined long before- 
hand, as such uses would be the outcome of 
previous lessons which have made the teacher 
realize the wisdom of the chosen arrangement, 
no matter how much it may change her plan 
of work. If the teacher really moves with the 
child in his interests and in his natural growth, 
acting as his guide and helper in whatever 
concerns his development, she will be well 
aware that the most thoughtful and intelli- 
gent program can be only suggestive from 
week to week. This means that it must al- 
ways be flexible enough to be readily adapt- 
able to the unforeseen needs of the group 
from day to day, and yet fixed enough to have 
a valid and rational foundation in previous 
experience. 

Perhaps one of the most valuable things a 



IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 203 

young teacher can do in working with any 
material is to keep a record at the end of each 
day of what has been done and then to make 
a note of what shall be done in the future 
because of what has been done in the past, 
even though that past may be only an hour 
away. In making some such resume as this 
it is hoped the following suggestive outline, 
to be filled in in relation to any one material 
used, may prove helpful not only to the 
younger teacher, but to the older one as well; 
that it may help her better to understand 
both her children and her materials, and to 
make her "daily program" the vital thing 
that it should be in every school-room: 

1. Material presented as stimulus. 

2. Stage of development of children in the use 

of this material. 

3. Teacher's plan for the use of the material 

on this day. 

4. Children's responses to the material as pre- 

sented. 

5. Teacher's organization through selection or 

elimination of these responses, and through 
emphasis upon those which have value for 
both individual and group. 

6. Suggestions arising in this lesson for future 

work. 



204 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

If one would fill this out intelligently for 
six weeks with each of the activities of 
her kindergarten, one's whole plan of work 
would be reorganized and so vitalized that 
routine, the great enemy of joy and life, 
would die a natural death and the teacher 
would begin to live a natural life with her 
children, seeing in every present experience a 
real significance and a functioning value in 
future experience. With so much of the un- 
known in each day ahead made valuable be- 
cause of the known, life in a school-room 
could not but take on a greater meaning and 
carry with it a greater joy — the joy that 
always accompanies vital and creative work, 
that always accompanies natural and normal 
growth, that always accompanies one on a 
journey where the general direction and end 
are known, but where many trails and by- 
ways reveal glimpses of beauty undreamed 
of and yet hoped for. 

Once more I would make a plea for wider 
knowledge, on the part of the teacher, of 
every material to be used with little children. 
The teacher cannot do too much earnest work 
with these gifts. Let her experiment either 



IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 205 

by herself or with a small group of congenial 
people. Of course there will be a distinct 
advantage in the work she will do with the 
social group, as that kind of work will bring 
better understanding of the social needs and 
values affecting the group activities of little 
children. 

There should be no danger that the teacher 
who makes such a study of a particular ma- 
terial will over-emphasize the use of that ma- 
terial. Indeed I am making this a plea for 
more earnest study of every material. The 
teacher of geography in any grade where it is 
one of the subjects to be taught, would be a 
sorry teacher if she knew no more geography 
than is contained between the covers of the 
textbook used in her grade. The teacher of 
even one phase of history needs the whole 
world's history as a background, to give sig- 
nificance to the history of the particular na- 
tion which happens to be a part of her 
" Course of Study " for the year. The one who 
would teach "Pippa Passes" must know 
Browning; one who would teach "The Flag 
of England" must know both Kipling and 
England; one who would teach a poem must 



206 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

know poetry; one who would teach a folk- 
tale must know folk-lore; and one who would 
teach little children to read must know liter- 
ature and little children. Why, then, need 
the kindergartner cry that too much time is 
spent in the study of any one material, even 
though that material is one that is used for 
but ten or twenty lessons in a year? That 
teacher who has not taken the time to get 
thoroughly acquainted with her materials is 
the very one who is inclined either to use 
them mechanically or to see no value in them 
at all. 

The time to be given to each table period, 
whether in the gift or the occupation lesson, 
should not be more than a half-hour, which 
will allow probably not more than twenty or 
twenty-five minutes for the actual manipu- 
lation of the material. It is equally important 
that no longer time be spent in any one group 
activity in the kindergarten, be it "Morning- 
circle," "Games," or what not. One child by 
himself in the nursery sometimes becomes so 
absorbed in something which occupies him, 
that an hour will easily slip by before he vol- 
untarily leaves it; another time he will flit 



IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 207 

from one interest to another like a bee in a 
clover field. The conditions of a group envi- 
ronment are entirely different. It is this dif- 
ference which obliges the careful and watchful 
teacher as a general rule to place some sort of 
time limit on the doing of different things 
day after day. Naturally there are occasions 
when her own wisdom and not the caprice of 
her children will remove or modify that limit. 
In a growing community all things are sub- 
ject to change, a fact which will not disturb 
the teacher who is well grounded in funda- 
mental principles. On the other hand, the 
teacher without a definite aim, to whom 
knowledge of the general direction to be 
taken is lacking, will have no realization of 
the simplest steps or of the little cut-offs on 
the trail; such a teacher may well hesitate to 
accept the position of guide to even the small- 
est band of happy, trustful little ones. 

The term "standard," which has been 
used repeatedly in ihese chapters, is one 
which must not be misunderstood. In these 
days when everything is being standardized, 
horn, the clothing on our backs or the food we 



208 USE OF THE KINDERGARTEN GIFTS 

put in our mouths to the food on which we 
nourish our minds or the fashionable jack- 
ets in which we clothe them, there is danger 
that the term "standard" may fall into dis- 
repute. There is a vast difference between 
"standardizing" the activities of little chil- 
dren and guiding those same activities by 
means of a standard. The man or woman of 
to-day who lacks great universal standards 
is like a ship at sea without a compass, or a 
wanderer through primeval forests without a 
sense of direction or the power to recognize 
and use a guiding star in the heavens. The 
guiding star never confines the traveler to a 
narrow path, but merely points the general 
direction and leaves him free to choose either 
the main highway or the little by-paths here 
and there, or to blaze his own trail. 

The function of the teacher is comparable 
to that of the compass or the star; her words 
of sympathy, of encouragement, of correction, 
of commendation will point the way; through 
her wisdom and love will much childish en- 
ergy be conserved to worthy ends; through 
her insight into human nature and her recog- 
nition of the nature of the individual and of 



IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 209 

society will each little one be given oppor- 
tunity to find himself in relation to that social 
whole, apart from which a man is not a man. 
The school-room needs to-day fewer school- 
masters and more lovers of little children. It 
needs fewer men and women who teach 
"subject-matter" and more who know how 
to use subject-matter as a means of guiding 
young activities. It needs fewer who feel the 
burden of service and more who feel its joy; 
fewer who plod and more who live. For, after 
all, it takes life to give life, and one who 
would do creative work of any kind must 
consecrate himself to his task, must give of 
his own life blood and find his reward in the 
joy of that giving. 



APPENDIX 

ILLUSTRATIONS— THE BUILDING GIFTS 

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OUTLINE 

I. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES IN THE 
KINDERGARTEN 

1. A typical failure in the kindergarten 1 

2. The nature of the educational adjustment 3 

3. The four factors in the adjustment 4 

4. The child's consciousness of these factors 4 

6. The first adjustment is active 5 

6. The teacher's cooperative and selective function 5 

7. The worth of material selected by the kindergarten ... 7 

8. The kindergarten gifts as material for conserving and 
directing energy 7 

9. Illustrations of the emergence of thought through 
action 8 

10. The teacher's intervention between child and world. . 12 

11. The transition from play to work 16 

12. Two dangers in kindergarten education 19 

II. THE FIRST AND SECOND GIFTS 

1. The first gift 22 

a. Varied objectives 23 

h. The teacher's discriminating standards 24 

c. Selecting and organizing responses 27 

2. The second gift 38 

a. Familiar activities with new purpose and varied 
form 38 

b. Activity suggests new arrangements and relations 41 

c. Form recognition 42 

d. Stimulating the need of new material 44 

e. The association of names 46 

III. THE BUILDING GIFTS — THIRD TO SIXTH 

GIFTS 

1. The third gift 51 

a. Instinctive curiosity in mere handling 51 

b. The transition to productive self-activity 52 



230 OUTLINE 

c. Two typical responses 53 

d. Introducing concerted action through rhythm . . 53 

e. Placing the emphasis on design 55 

f. PiUng materials and the suggestion of names ... 56 

g. The transition to activity for an end 59 

h. The effect of social intercourse 60 

i. Methods of interaction between teacher and 

children 61 

j. The twofold way of growth 63 

k. Forms of knowledge to be gained 64 

I. Number experiences 67 

2. The fourth gift 69 

a. The nature of direction of guidance 69 

b. Group unity and individual initiative 70 

c. The more conscious control of new material .... 72 

d. Expressing an idea 74 

e. Suggestions arising from a comparative use of 
two gifts , 81 

3. The fifth gift 83 

a. The need for more material and greater variety . 83 

h. INIeans of control 83 

c. The need for repeated and varied handling 86 

d. The teacher's control 87 

e. Equalizing activity 92 

/. Fostering self-reliance 95 

g. Differences of standard among children 98 

h. The propriety of interference 99 

4. The sixth gift 105 

a. Acquainting children with the new gift 105 

6. Getting an idea for group work 108 

c. Developing new ideas for new forms 108 

d. Stimulating an aesthetic use 118 

e. Widening the choice of materials 124 

/. Cooperative work. 129 

g. The use of imagination 131 

h. The interaction between appreciation and control 132 



OUTLINE 231 



IV. THE FLAT MATERIALS — SEVENTH TO 
TWELFTH GIFTS 

1. The flat materials 134 

a. Collecting, sorting and grouping things 134 

b. Needed qualities in educational playthings 136 

c. Various ways of presenting flat materials 137 

2. The seventh gift 143 

a. Geometry and geometric forms 143 

6. Manner of presenting materials 144 

c. Variations in arrangements 145 

d. Making pictures 150 

e. Problem games and puzzles 151 

/. Designing 151 

3. The eighth gift 157 

a. Opening and shutting the gonograph 158 

6. Measuring experiments 159 

c. Fleeting representation 159 

4. The ninth gift 161 

a. Arrangements 161 

b. Tones 162 

5. The tenth gift 163 

a. Presentation of material 164 

6. Typical arrangements 164 

c. Straight line problems 171 

d. Counting and number puzzles 172 

6. The eleventh giffe 172 

a. Whole-ring arrangements 172 

b. Half -ring arrangements 175 

c. Quarter-ring arrangements 177 

d. Combinations 177 

7. The twelfth gift 180 

a. The use of the lentil as a point 180 

b. Lines and piles 181 

c. Representation 182 

d. Outlining 185 

8. Suggestions for combinations 187 

a. Unsatisfactory combinations 187 

b. Satisfactory combinations 187 



232 OUTLINE 



V. SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS 

1. Education as an adjiistment 195 

2. The individual as active 195 

3. The gifts as playthings 195 

4. The children as a social group 196 

5. The teacher as race experience 196 

6. The appropriate time for using the various gifts 197 

7. The first two gifts in the nursery 198 

8. Limited appeal of the various gifts 199 

9. Flexibility in the use of gifts 200 

10. Recording the use of a gift 202 

11. Time allotments 206 

12. The right use of standards 207 



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